David A. Russell ’60 died on November 2, 2024, in Los Altos, California.
(The following was provided by the Los Altos Town Crier on December 10, 2024:)
David Russell ’60
Dave Russell, a beloved husband, father and grandfather who moved to northern California in the 1970s and stayed true to a vow to never leave, died peacefully at home on November 2, with family at his side and a smile on his face. He was 86.
He was born July 11, 1938, in Beverly, Mass., to Daniel Russell and Vivian Hall Russell.
Dan was a machinist and a carpenter who had grown up working in the shipyards of Glasgow, Scotland, and Vivian worked as a bank teller. The couple had a daughter, Irma, and wanted more, but the privations of the Great Depression led them to wait six more years.
As a boy, Dave savored the joys of a childhood in North Beverly – summers skinny-dipping in Wenham Lake, and winters playing pond hockey until it was too dark to see the puck. He was a natural engineer, like his father, who taught him how to build things.
Dave attended Bowdoin College for two years, but discovered liberal arts wasn’t his thing. He graduated instead from Lowell Institute of Technology, now University of Massachusetts at Lowell, a much better fit.
While in college, he met Susan Elliott, who would become his soulmate and constant companion until the day he died. Though both attended Beverly High School, they didn’t meet there, although Dave would later claim he spotted his future wife swimming to shore one day after the little sailboat she and her siblings were racing capsized.
Sue and Dave got married in the back of her parents’ home shortly after she graduated from Mount Holyoke. They settled near Springfield, Mass., where he worked as a plastics researcher and she was a schoolteacher. They bought their first home in Wilbraham and made lifelong friends there, some of whom helped them realize a slightly crazy dream. Though not an architect, Dave drew up plans for a modest A-frame chalet in Vermont where he imagined he and Susan and their friends would be able to spend weekends skiing and sitting around an open fire strumming acoustic guitars. Calling on the goodwill and sweat equity of friends, they somehow made it happen.
In eight years as a plastics researcher for Monsanto, he became aware that to advance in research, he would need a PhD. He instead chose to take night classes in Hartford to obtain his master’s degree in management. Soon, Monsanto transferred him (and his family) to Detroit and then back to Springfield before he was summoned to corporate headquarters in St. Louis. In 1976, he was named marketing director for Monsanto’s electronic materials division in Palo Alto, Calif., the job that catapulted his career. It was the dawn of Silicon Valley, and Monsanto was a leading producer of silicon wafers, a key material for the new technology. Dave led joint ventures to manufacture wafers overseas, traveling monthly to Taiwan, Korea, and China in his role overseeing business expansion in Asia. Despite a demanding work schedule, he coached Little League, helped patiently with math homework, and made it home in time for dinner when he was in town.
When they were little, his children would wait for him to get home from work, usually to play baseball. He insisted his daughter learn not to “throw like a girl,” and supported her as one of just a few girls in Little League.
He was his children’s and grandchildren’s most loyal cheerleader. He’d brag to friends and strangers alike. If anything, his pride got more pronounced the older he got. Last spring, to cite just one example, Gordon took him to a radiology appointment where Dave had persuaded the two techs there to Google him and read some of his articles. In his final days, as he lay in a hospital bed at home, his eyes would light up when he recognized one of his kids leaning over the rail.
He exhibited qualities common in people who grew up in the lean times of the Depression and World War II. He hated waste, whether on fancy things or by throwing away anything that could be fixed. He bought sensible cars and what he called “value wine.” His frugality didn’t stem from pessimism but rather a desire to spend money on things he believed were worth it. He was unfailingly generous, taking his extended family on amazing vacations and taking great pleasure in treating friends and family alike to a wonderful meal. More tellingly, he was an adventurous spirit, and some of his ideas – such as the Vermont chalet – were optimistic to the point of naiveté.
The family was always on the go, taking long road trips to state and national parks and visiting relatives in Massachusetts. After he accumulated a lot of frequent flier miles, those adventures included Hawaii, Canada, and Europe. His fondest dream as a grandfather was to take the entire family on an African safari. Susan planned it meticulously and it was every bit as awesome as he hoped.
Dave had a heart attack at 55, but he remained in good health for another three decades (ultimately with about twenty stents in his body). His own father, whom he idolized, had had seven heart attacks before dying at 62, just before he and Susan married. Dave retired and quit smoking shortly after his heart attack, keeping busy consulting for another decade, and then focusing on golfing, and making furniture and glasses. He always spoke of his great luck at avoiding his father’s fate, and savored his final decades. Along the way, he left his kids and grandkids with countless life hacks: how to throw and hit a baseball; how to hammer a nail and use a saw; how to take the 401k match, always.; how to fix something rather than throwing it away; how to laugh at yourself, but also to speak up for yourself; how to forgive. In sum, how to conduct yourself.
Dave is survived by his sister, Irma Berry; his wife, Susan; his children, Jeanne and Gordon; their spouses, Mike Villarreal and Stacy Grabert; and their children, Quinn Russell and Bella and Marcos Villarreal; as well as a large and loving extended family.