Harold E. Sterne

Sterne, Harold E.
April 25, 1929 - Oct. 2, 2010

Major Harold Emanuel Sterne was born April 25, 1929, and died Oct. 2, 2010, at the age of 81 in Sarasota, Fla. He was formerly of Cincinnati. Harold was born in Frankfurt, Germany.
The funeral will be at 1:30 p.m. today, Oct. 4, 2010, at Temple Emanu-El, followed by burial at Palms Memorial Park. He is survived by his wife and soulmate of 50 years, Judilee Tash Sterne; his two sons and three daughters, Mark (Cari) of Northbrook, Ill., David (Michele) of Atlanta, Melissa (Richard Kosmacher) of Chicago, Deborah (Rabbi Bill Siemers) of Riverhead, N.Y., and Cynthia of Atlanta. Harold was predeceased by his brother George L. Sterne and parents Martha (Cahn) and Max Sterne, and is survived by sister-in-law Suzan Tash. Harold was the proud grandfather of Jeffrey, Michael and Ryan S., Zachary and Seth Shapiro, Gabriel and Evan Kosmacher, and Rebecca and Daniel Siemers. He is survived also by his niece and nephew.
Harold served as a major in the United States Air Force. He was a past president of Temple Sholom in Cincinnati, and recently served on the Endowment Committee of Temple Emanu-El of Sarasota. He was a volunteer ombudsman for the State of Florida Department of Elder Affairs.
He was a passionate printer; he bought his first printing press at the age of 14, and graduated from West Virginia Tech with a degree in printing management, a field in which he worked until his retirement as vice president of manufacturing from S. Rosenthal Co. in Cincinnati. He continued his hobby of letterpress printing in his own studio in Cincinnati and then Sarasota until his death. He holds three printing related patents and authored two books about antique printing and binding equipment. He remained very involved in the letterpress community.
Having fled Nazi Germany with his family at the age of 9, Harold Sterne never forgot the gift that life provided him. Besides his numerous professional accomplishments, he was a devoted family man, providing his family with a rich loving environment. He became interested in his genealogy and in the past 10 years had devoted time to researching his family roots in Germany and made many trips there with his children and grandchildren. He and a cousin began a project to provide markers to Jewish cemeteries in Germany. His happiest moments were celebrating family events with all of his children and grandchildren, most recently the bar mitzvah of his grandson Ryan, his and Judilee's 50th wedding anniversary and his 80th birthday.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in his memory be made to the Temple Emanu-el Endowment Fund or to a charity of choice.