On the first day of summer, June 20, 2020, Roger Neil Wallace, a longtime resident of Bedford, Massachusetts, quietly took his leave of this bright blue ball for adventures beyond imagining. He was born on July 13, 1941, in Montclair, New Jersey, the son of Neil Merton Wallace, a West Point graduate and career army officer, and Eleanor Marguerite Seller, who had completed studies at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art.

Roger had set out upon his career path by the age of seven, when he successfully completed requirements for a Cub Scout badge by building a crystal radio set; he went on to earn progressive ham radio licensing, including the highest level, by the age of fourteen; and he eventually became a member of the team which developed the communication system for the Apollo XI moonshot. His team had gathered to hear the astronauts call "Come in, Houston," and when Houston "came in," the cheers, hollering and general hubbub in the lab were truly electrifying. Much of Roger's career was devoted to projects for NASA, so his family could claim him as their own "rocket scientist."

After completing undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering at MIT, he spent his career working in high tech companies in the Boston area, principally Raytheon in Waltham and Lexington and Sanders in Nashua. Sanders was acquired and divested several times during Roger's time there—Lockheed, Lockheed-Martin and BAE Systems. Roger commented that he'd worked for four different companies but kept the same office and phone number.

At Raytheon, he met the love of his life, Mary Baughman, a technical editor who found his writing was so good it didn't need editing, and who noticed he always had two cartons of milk on his cafeteria lunch tray. Ever the achiever, Roger had earned a pilot's license and become part owner of a single-engine Cessna, flights on which were an important factor in his courtship of Mary. They shared forty years of happy marriage.

Throughout his life he was fascinated by birds, animals and wildlife in general, and he could imitate many bird calls. A particular love was Fred the cat, whom he and Mary raised from skinny stray kitten to robust adult cat. Roger also had a life-long interest in music. He began studying clarinet at age nine, became a member and conductor of the all-state high school band, and through grad school enjoyed playing recorder in small informal ensembles. Ultimately, following the careers of young prodigies on YouTube was a sustaining joy.

Plain and simply, Roger loved to make things work, whether creating a device to slice microscopic crystals of indium antimonide for his thesis project at MIT or modifying a childproof cap for elder ease in opening. One of his favorite words was "gizmo."

Most of all, he loved family gatherings—in Kentucky, Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan and Cape Cod. On occasion at family gatherings in his youth, he would inadvertently become the center of attention when his thoughtful, measured speaking style broke into a flawlessly delivered impromptu impersonation, much to the delight and hilarity of those gathered, who knew him as "The Rogue."

In addition to his wife, family members who will cherish having known Roger include his sister, Carol Wallace Sherman, of Williamsburg, Virginia; Mary's brother and sister-in-law, John and Carol Baughman, of Frankfort, Kentucky; cousins with whom he spent much time during World War II—James Hunting Bennett, his best man, of Venice, Florida, and New York City, and Pamela Winton Gosner, of New Providence, New Jersey; his nephew and his wife, Stephen and Carey Baughman, of Indianapolis; his niece and her husband, Anne Baughman Spears and Tom Spears, of Cincinnati; and great-nieces Mara Hannah Baughman and Jaina Clio Baughman of Indianapolis.

A virtual memorial service will be held on Saturday, August 22, at 2:00 p.m. EDT. If you would like to be invited, send email to the Reverend John Gibbons, jgibbons@uubedford.org . For the subject line, use Roger Wallace Zoom service.

Contributions in his memory to any of these organization would please Roger: the American Cancer Society , the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (689 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-3302), The Boston Foundation (75 Arlington Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02116), Boston Baroque (10 Guest Street, Suite 290, Boston, MA 02135), the Leelanau Conservancy (P. O. Box 1007, Leland, MI 49654), MIT (77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139— Roger was a member of the class of 1963), and Wellesley College (106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481—Mary is a member of the class of 1966).