NELSON, Dr. Eldred Carlyle Loving son, brother, husband, father, father-in-law, and grandfather passed away October 18, 2008 at his home in San Jose, CA, at the age of 91 with his family by his side.
Born on August 14, 1917 in Starbuck, Minnesota to Carl and Minnie Nelson, he was the second youngest of six children. Dr. Nelson earned a bachelor of arts degree from St. Olaf College in 1938, excelling in Physics and Mathematics.
While at St. Olaf he performed piano recitals presented by the School of Music and played both violin and oboe in the orchestra.
Eldred moved to California to attend graduate school in Physics at UC Berkeley. While attending Berkeley, he was a Teaching Assistant in Physics and, in 1941, was appointed the "Whiting Fellow" in Physics under the supervision of Dr. Ernest Lawrence.
In 1943, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer asked Eldred to go to Los Alamos, New Mexico and be the group leader of the Theoretical Physics Division for the Manhattan Project.
There he met and married Klaire Aicher. At their wedding, Dr. Edward Teller played piano.
Eldred went on to become the Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, 1946-47 whose office was next to Dr. Enrico Fermi.
From 1947-48, he and Dr. Stanley Frankel became partners/consultants in math and physics. From 1948-1954, he was the head of Hughes Aircraft's Advanced Electronic Laboratories and Associate Director, Research and Development Laboratories.
He enjoyed telling the story of working late one night, alone in the office, and having Howard Hughes approach him and introduced himself.
In 1954 he joined TRW as a "start- up company" and worked for TRW until his retirement in 1982.
In 1963, he married Helen Goode, and enjoyed a loving marriage for 37 years, until her passing in 2000.
Dr. Nelson is survived by his daughter and son-in-law, Debra and Michael La Tourette, and their daughters, Kristin and Kelsey, nephew, Dr. Curtis and Nancy Nelson and niece, April Tichnor, stepsons and daughters-in-law, James and Andrea Goode and John and Cecily Goode,
and step-grandsons, Jim and Scott Goode.
2 comments:
I was sad to find your grandfather's obituary, while I was attempting to search for Eldred. He was a cousin of my father, Carl Melvin Nelson. We had recently returned from visiting our distant relatives in Norway and Olga Pladsen (Kjennerud) spoke of your grandfather's trip & visit in 1966. Olga gave me a picture of Carl & Minnie's children (including Eldred)that she had received. Of the children I have only met Marian and did not know Eldred, but know a little of his dedicated & colorful life.
My heart-felt sympathies to all the family.
Dale Nelson of Deephaven, Minnesota
Dear Dale,
Thank you for your wonderful sentiment and sympathies. Eldred was a wonderful and kind man whom I admire and respect immensely.
And as I said at his funeral, his favorite word when I was a boy was "indeed" and he was a "Mac", always having the latest Apple computer starting with the Apple II.
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