Joseph E. Baclawski

Joseph Edward Baclawski, a 30-year resident of Amherst, New Hampshire, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, August 22, 1927, and died peacefully November 17, 2018 at the age of 91. His parents, Victoria and Teofil Baclawski, raised their family in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island after immigrating to the United States from Poland in the early 1900's. The youngest of three children, Joseph was a good student and a competitive swimmer at the Boys Club in Providence. His parents were committed to providing a better life for their children. While they never spoke English, they put all three children through four years of college on factory workers' wages during the Great Depression. Joseph graduated one semester early from high school and enrolled in engineering at Brown University and was on the swim team there until he turned 18 and was drafted into the United States Army as World War II was just ending. He served in Europe for two years as part of the occupation force. His trip to Europe was on a troop ship returning 10,000 German POWs to Europe. Speaking fluent English, Polish, and some Russian, Joe volunteered for missions with Army Intelligence. Joseph graduated from Brown University in May 1950, and on June 6, 1951, married Joyce Marilyn Rosenberger, whom he met in upstate New York when they both worked as counselors at adjacent boys and girls camps for under privileged children from New York City. They lived for the next 25 years in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where they raised two children, James, and Joan, and enjoyed an all-American small-town lifestyle in a tight knit neighborhood. Joseph worked for General Electric in Fort Wayne as an engineer, earning seven US patents and as a manufacturing manager. Joseph took on international assignments for GE, traveling to the Soviet Union/Russia extensively during the Cold War at a time when few Americans could. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil off and on for three years, learning Portuguese and falling in love with the culture and the coffee. Joseph finished his career working at MIT for 15 years responsible for coordinating research, engineering and business for the President of the University until he retired at 75 years old. In that capacity, he sat with Jeff Bezos of Amazon in Jeff’s office in Seattle on September 11, 2001 and watched as disaster unfolded. Joe was remarkably healthy. He was born at home in bed and died in his own bed. Until the week he died, he was never in the hospital and was hardly sick a day in his life. After a marriage of 66 years, Joseph and Joyce Baclawski will be buried together at 11 AM, Saturday, May 18, 2019 at Meadow View Cemetery, Amherst, New Hampshire. Joseph was known in college as “happy-go-lucky Joe” and had a very full and rich life. As per his request, Joseph will be buried with the ashes of his wife tucked under one arm and a bottle of Jim Beam Bourbon under the other.