Charles Wolcott Merriam Iii

1931 - 2021

Charles Wolcott Merriam III

Webster - Charles Wolcott Merriam III, 89, of Webster, NY, passed due to vascular dementia on August 16, 2020. He was the beloved husband of 57 years of the late Carolyn Hamond Merriam; loving father of Stephen Charles Merriam (Linda Southam Merriam) and Gail Elizabeth Merriam; and adoring grandfather of Diana C. Merriam, Charles N. Merriam, and Carolyn (Cara) F. Merriam. He is also survived by his stepsister, Christine Asch of Germany.

Charles (Chuck) was born in Birmingham, AL on March 31, 1931. He grew up in Taunton, MA and graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1949. Chuck earned a BS in Electrical Engineering in 1953 from Brown University where he met his wife who attended Pembroke College. A varsity soccer player for Brown, Chuck was a team captain and was named an Honorable Mention All American his junior and senior years. He was inducted into the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society in 1953. He went on to earn his Master and Doctor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in 1958.

In 1959, Chuck moved his family to Schenectady, NY to work for General Electric. He became a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY in 1964 and taught there until 1971. He then moved his family to Brighton, NY to serve as chair of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Rochester. He was chair for more than a decade and thereafter remained a professor. Famous for his demanding teaching style, Chuck was beloved by colleagues and students alike for his devotion to excellence in education and teaching. He served on a number of university committees and wrote several engineering textbooks. Chuck considered being named a Fellow in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) his highest academic honor. He retired from the University of Rochester after 30 years in 2001 at age 70.

In retirement, Chuck studied music at the Eastman Community Music School and sang with the New Horizons Choir in the Rochester area. He and Carolyn enjoyed a number of travel adventures around the world. But their greatest joy came from summers spent in the Mount Desert Island area of Maine where, after many summers of vacationing there, they purchased a summer cottage in 1995 in Southwest Harbor. They developed many warm friendships during the succeeding 16 summers and relished sailing, hiking, and golfing together. They especially cherished sharing the cottage and nearby Acadia National Park with their children and three grandchildren. Chuck learned how to race their Cape Cod Bullseye sailboat and served as secretary of the Southwest Harbor Fleet. He also continued to pursue his life-long passion for photography and took up wooden bird carving. Meanwhile, he won several senior golf tournaments and joined a church choir in Bar Harbor. In 2004, Chuck and Carolyn celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a fun-filled party in Southwest Harbor with family, long-time friends, and Southwest Harbor neighbors.

In their later 70s, Chuck and Carolyn moved to a continuing care retirement community in Pittsford, NY into a standalone home. Shortly after Carolyn died in 2011, Chuck moved into an assisted living apartment due to early-stage dementia. He moved into the Maplewood Nursing Home in Webster, NY in 2014 where he remained until his death.

Graveside services were held in September 2020 at Waterside Cemetery in Marblehead, MA where Chuck was interred with his beloved wife in the Hamond family plot. A Celebration of Life service will be held at 10:30 AM on Saturday, July 3, 2021, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 131 W. Main Street, Webster, NY.