Alfred Edward Milch

Alfred Edward Milch, 94, of Ossining, NY, and Arlington, MA, passed away on November 29, 2014. Adoring father and grandfather, outgoing and caring, he is missed beyond words.

Al was born on February 18, 1920, in the borough of Bronx, NY. An accomplished physical chemist at Philips Labs throughout his career, he was also a military veteran, serving during the early 1940's in the Special Engineering Detachment at Oak Ridge, TN, where he contributed to the uranium enrichment project whose output fueled the first atomic weapon used in combat, "Little Boy", dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945.

Al graduated from Bronx's De Witt Clinton high school, then City College of New York, and then following the war New York University on the GI Bill of Rights where he received his PhD in chemistry.

In addition to his patent awards and other professional achievements Al was an avid philatelist, and enjoyed swimming, hiking, canoeing, summer vacations on Cape Cod, camping on the various Narrows Islands in Lake George, tinkering in the basement, and birdwatching everywhere, all with family and friends. He was poetry in motion on racing skates.

In his later years he traveled the world looking for birds to add to a life list he'd been building up since his teens, when he was a founding member along with his boy scout buddies from Troop 168 in the Bronx of the Ancient Order of Sialis Ornithologists, now all gone but never forgotten.

Al is survived by his children, Iva and Danny, his son-in-law, Tommy, his granddaughter, Ruthie, and a nephew, Ted. He was preceded in death by his sister, Hermine, his wife, Ruth, and later by his partner, Marcia. He so loved them all and they him.

As were his wishes his ashes were brought, in sadness and sorrow, to a small brook by an old oak tree in a wildlife sanctuary he'd visited often over a span of half a century. There they were gently laid on the water and, drifting slowly to towering cliffs and then cascading in a rush down to the Hudson River below, they followed his dear wife's remains on the same serene journey that hers took 21 years before. Now they're together again.