Frederick Joseph Leonard of Bedford, Massachusetts passed away on Saturday, December 11, 2021.

He was born on February 17, 1920 in Hartford, CT, son of the late Frederick and Barbara (Becker) Leonard.

Between 1925 and 1933 Fred gained 6 siblings: Barbara, James, Catherine, Gertrude, William and Mary.

Early in the1900s, Fred's grandparents (Becker) acquired a large plot of land in Middle Haddam CT. Fred would occasionally be taken to "Beckerville" to stay and play with his cousins. The Beckers were hard working do it yourselfers who were always working to make money one way or another. One of those ways was mining feldspar, and that mining involved the use of some explosives. On one visit, when he was age 6, Fred got hold of a blasting cap and tried to detonate it with a nail and a rock. That resulted in the tips of his left thumb and forefinger being blown off.

Depression years were very hard on the Leonards economically. The family lived on the family land in "Beckerville". The upside was that there were family around to help. Many of Fred's stories involve an uncle or aunt, or the neighbor Joe Reeb, being there when needed.

Family catastrophes followed in the early 1940's. Fred's father died in 1940, and his younger brother William died in 1941. Fred became the breadwinner for the family and in the early war years was working as a machinist at Colt Arms in Hartford. Fred poured (by hand) the foundation for the house that still stands today. The initial house was moved onto ½ of the new foundation. Over the next couple of years Fred added onto the initial house, to cover the entire foundation, added a 2nd floor, dug and laid pipe for an ingenious spring feed water system, put in a toilet, sinks, electricity, heat, etc.

With the attack on Pearl Harbor, Fred was anxious to do his part in the war. But as the sole support of his family, he was excluded from the draft and even from the service. In the later war years as his siblings aged he became eligible to serve and he went off to Middletown to visit the recruiters there. He went to the Army and then the Navy, but the recruiters told him that the damage to his left thumb and forefinger would disallow him from serving in those branches. Fred then went to the Marine Corps and the recruiter there started to tell him the same thing. Fred reminded the recruiter that his trigger finger worked just fine, and the Marine Corps decided he was just the man for them.

Fred went to boot camp at Parris Island and as he was finishing training, the war with the Japanese ended. Anxious to do his bit, Fred volunteered to go to China where he served in Operation Beleaguer. The purpose of Operation Beleaguer was to repatriate Japanese troops in China and to manage handing over the territory they had held to the Nationalist Chinese forces. Fred served in this little-known operation from the fall of 1945 until the summer of 1946 when most of the Japanese forces had been repatriated.

In a remarkable feat of memory, in 2012, Fred used Google Earth to trace his movements in Qinhuangdao China 66 years earlier by remembering the shape of the harbor, and following rivers and rail lines, and remains of the Great Wall of China (When Fred was in China, Qinhuangdao was called Chinwangtao).

On returning from China and leaving the Marine Corps, Fred met (or perhaps re-met depending on who was telling the story) the love of his life, Joan Coburn. Fred and Joan were married on 1 July 1950, and they were together until Joan passed away in 2010.

Like many returning servicemen, Fred took advantage of the GI Bill to get a college education. This was something that would have been completely out of reach without that program. In 1947, he started school at the expansion campus that had been set up by the University of Connecticut at Fort Trumbull in New London. In his final year, he transferred to the campus at Storrs. He graduated in 1951 with a degree in Electrical Engineering.

Upon graduation from UCONN Fred took a job with the Westinghouse Corporation. After a training interval where he worked at various sites, Fred settled at the Westinghouse Research and Development facility in Churchill (near Pittsburgh), PA.

It was in Pittsburg that Fred and Joan's children, Kim and Mark, were born. Just after Mark was born Fred took a job with a new company that was to be headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, The MITRE Corporation. Fred was one of the early employees of MITRE and Fred and Joan bought their house in Bedford knowing where MITRE would be located a mile or so away from home. Fred spent the rest of his career at MITRE working on sonar programs. Having bought the Bedford house with proximity to MITRE in mind he was able to walk to work most days.

Fred was an amazing physical specimen. He was very strong and remained active and fit throughout his life. Now most of us would think of such a fit person as somebody who went to a gym or had some sort of organized exercise program. Not so with Fred. He stayed fit by walking and doing hard physical labor around the house. Digging a hole? Moving a rock? Installing a sewer line? Most people would hire a backhoe. Not Fred. Fred was a man who wore out shovels. He also maintained the do-it-yourself ethos he inherited from his family. Remodeling the family home? Adding a new garage? Why get a contractor when you could design and build it yourself? No problem at all when you have boundless energy, children who will saw and hammer on command, and brother Jimmy who was a master carpenter.

Fred and Joan put down roots in Bedford. Kim and Mark went through school in Bedford. Joan worked at Millipore in Bedford. They had many close friends in town and particularly among the young families who had bought into the Meadowbrook Road subdivision in the late 50's. They stayed in their house on Meadowbrook Road until Fred broke his hip in 2010. Both Fred and Joan moved to Carleton-Willard Village. In a devastating blow to Fred, Joan died soon after that. Fred remained at Carleton-Willard for the rest of his life. For most of that time he was in the assisted living facility, where he remained physically active and mentally sharp. Even in the last days of his life he had technical books on the bookshelf in his room.

Throughout his life Fred remained close to his mother and siblings. His mother passed away in 1990. He remained in close contact with his remaining siblings (Jimmy, Barbara, Catherine, Gertrude, and Mary). As he aged, visiting became more challenging and rare, but he relished the times that he could see his siblings and his many nieces and nephews.

Fred was predeceased by his siblings Barbara Weir, James Leonard, Catherine Albrecht, and William Leonard.

He is survived by sisters Gertrude Scully, and Mary Hennessey and her husband William. Fred is also survived by daughter Kim Lennon and her husband Chris of Bedford, MA, and son Mark and his wife Sueli of Merrimack, NH.

Private funeral services were held.

For those who wish, memorial donations can be made to the American Diabetes Association, P.O. Box 7023, Merrifield, VA  22116-7023