Eulogy for Ezra Meltzer
by Richard Meltzer
his son
Well, Dad, I guess this is goodbye. It's hard to know what to say to summarize a life that I've been trying to live up to all of my life, but here goes.
I think you all know that my father was one of what's been called 'The Greatest Generation.' He lived through the depression and his generation created the America that we know of unprecedented prosperity, he was in the US army that conquered Hitler and the most unspeakable evil the world has ever seen and turned Europe into a previously unimaginable peaceful and prosperous continent. His generation started the Civil Rights Movement that triggered the counterculture late 60's antiwar movement of my generation.
But what was more important to me was that he instilled in me the values of hard work, honesty, and intellectualism. His strong intellect was apparent not only with his peer group at City College class of 1939, but with his love of and interest in and grasp of science and engineering. Many of you know that he was a physics major and so were I and my daughter Sara - 3 generations of Physics majors with a strong interest in engineering - Sara just graduated Cornell Engineering school a bit over 2 yrs ago. My older daughter Michelle was also a science major - Animal Science at Cornell (pre-veterinary). Dad was at home in both the sciences and humanities, having read classic novels voraciously as a youth and young man, and remembering far more than I could. I studied CP Snow's ideas about 'the 2 cultures' suggesting that science and literary culture were worlds apart and did not communicate, but my father clearly united the two. I don 't know where he was able to develop this, since his father, my Grandpa Ben who is buried here, did not have any feeling for or understanding for science. Dad was, like my Grandpa Ben, a good chess player, and I couldn't beat him or my Grandpa in chess during their lifetimes. What impresses me most about Dad, however, is his relentless honesty. When he was a young man and junior management person in Burndy, a company where my Uncle Julian, buried here, was president, Dad decided not to violate his values and go across a union picket line, as he was being asked to do by company management. Mom always thought that this decreased his rate of rise in the company management, but Dad never regretted doing what he felt was the right thing, and I always thought that this was a shining example of being true to one's values that my father bequeathed to me. He was not somebody to cut corners with moral values for convenience or profit. He felt that what was right was right, and he would not feel comfortable if he did not do things according to his moral lights.
Dad went through a midlife job crisis and his example helped me to go through my midlife job crisis (leaving academics and going into private practice) with values intact, which can be a hard thing in today's society. When a new management acquired Burndy after my Uncle Julian died, and changed the entire middle management and my Dad was out of a job, I never heard him whine that the company was ungrateful since he had put in about 30 yrs. of his life and effort for Burndy. Instead, he used the opportunity to try to improve his business position by becoming the vice president of Eagle Electric in Queens, and when this didn't work because it was a family owned business that wanted to stay that way, he chose as his next job one that both used his talents in engineering and management and also allowed him to do good for as many people as he could - working in the New York City Housing Authority. He realized the challenge that faced the USA's largest landlord in trying to house poor people, and never criticized the residents but worked for their welfare and delighted in being able to improve things, such as improving the phone systems for the Housing Authority and Housing Authority Police, etc. This helped me when I faced a similar midlife difficulty of change of job, and allowed me to do what was right and moral for me even though it looked to many that I was losing face - I had no trouble in leaving academic medicine rather than continuing in an administrative position and trying to become a chief of cardiogy that I felt would be a dishonorable position - and instead to go into private practice of cardiology. Without Dad's help and example I would have had more difficulty in making what turns out to be a very good decision for me and my family.
Dad's life in retirement was also exemplary. He tried some business ventures that were somewhat speculative, especially the Carribbean telemarketing venture on Curacao and Trinidad and elsewhere. Though these didn't work out and he put his time and some limited resources into them, he did not regret his efforts and made sure that his speculation was conservative and did not threaten his livelihood. They were an exciting venture for somebody in his 70's. He also tried for a bit to help me with marketing a system that I patented to improve the safety of cardiopulmonary bypass, and I appreciated this. He used his financial and accounting and management talents in his Wynmoor Village in Florida to great advantage, and used his volunteer position to greatly help and advance things both in his individual condo building, and also on the entire Wynmoor Council. When I distributed his papers about Wynmoor to some of his friends who have continued on the Council, both of them mentioned that Dad was important and trusted on the council not only due to his intelligence and insight and hard work, but especially because he was trusted because he was honest. This struck me as exactly correct, that he was the father and man I knew. He would be proud to hear that in my view honesty was among the most important of the values that he bequeathed me. Also intellectual curiosity and the understanding that hard work is useful and honest and an important positive value in itself.
I should say a few words about Dad's final illness, which started this past January on his 57th Anniversary, Jan. 29th. He underwent one abdominal operation in February and had to undergo an even larger second one in April. I was not satisfied that there was not enough information to choose this operation with a large probability that it was the right choice, and I was agonizing over the literature and medical advice we were getting. Dad comforted me by saying that he was used to the concept of having to make important decisions without full information, and had even taught engineering classes and made mathematical models about this. He looked at the data and made the decision that the Whipple Procedure was the right operation for him, and kept a folder that I found at his death about information on Whipple procedures. He was right, of course. Though I ve preferred him staying in New Mexico to be in assisted living and so I could help him with his final illness, he decided that after he had tried chemotherapy and radiation therapy in New Mexico and there was nothing more to be done, that he would prefer to return to his own home and die at home. He was clear that he preferred Hospice at Home to going to the hospital to die. The Hospice by the Sea in Florida was really wonderful, and helped him to fulfill his wish and die with dignity at home, surrounded by his family, and without pain. Though he was extremely weak at the end, he was conscious and able to say that he was not in pain, and I am glad that my daughters Michelle and Sara were with him and my Mom during his last few days, and were a great comfort to him. He died the way he wished to, and had his affairs arranged in excellent order.