David Carter

Biography David Carter was born on April 1, 1920, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York, the child of poor Jewish immigrants from Ananiev, Ukraine. Originally named Israel Cohen, later registered for school as Isadore Cohen, he was nicknamed "Red" because of his flaming red hair. Starting work at age seven, he had to pay penny bribes to neighborhood thugs connected with the notorious Italian-Jewish criminal organization, Murder Inc., in order to get safely home. David recalled all his life with gratitude the beautiful nature and good food served at the Surprise Lake Camp for poor Jewish kids, a summer camp sponsored by comedian Eddie Cantor. This experience perhaps sparked his lifelong appreciation for good food and the beauties of nature. He also benefitted from the arts and crafts programs offered by a neighborhood evangelical-Presbyterian settlement house, perhaps sparking his lifelong curiosity about people from other cultures. He also saw the first German Zeppelin to arrive in the United States flying over his neighborhood. David started high school at Brooklyn Technical High School shortly after it opened, but had to drop out in 1933 because his father Jacob had died of stomach cancer. He was then obliged to support his mother Esther and his three sisters Bessie, Sarah, and Janet while continuing to attend Brooklyn Tech's nighttime high school. With a flair for the theatrical, David also became involved with FDR's Works Progress Administration (WPA) plays and musicals. He was particularly proud of his participation in the classic WPA drama "Pins and Needles". In the late 1930s and early 1940s, David's life changed dramatically. The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact so disgusted him that he vowed science (based on facts) and not politics (based on feelings) would be the basis for his life going forward. He obtained his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from City College of New York and had his first technical job as a draftsman in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. While working as a labor organizer, he met Rebecca Blumberg, the young woman who would become his wife; she was a freshman at Brooklyn College at the time. David and Rebecca married in 1943; at that time he changed his name officially to David Carter, as anti-Semitism in the U.S. had made it difficult to find employment with the last name of Cohen. Rejected from the draft because of a perforated eardrum, during World War II David worked at Columbia University on research associated with the Manhattan Project, although he did not know it at the time. David was deeply honored to have worked for Enrico Fermi in Chicago while his wife attended the University of Chicago's School of Social Welfare. As a couple, he and Rebecca believed in a two-career marriage. While his wife obtained her master's degree, he applied to Stanford's PhD program in physics; typical of both his sense of humor and his love of sports, he always joked that he had known nothing about Stanford except that it had a great football team. As a second-year graduate student at Stanford with Marvin Chodorow, he became famous in the physics department for solving a longstanding focusing problem whose solution helped enable the first linear accelerator to operate at what now is called SLAC (originally Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) National Accelerator Laboratory. David's first academic job was at NYU; seeking better opportunities for his family, he then went to work on radar for Convair/General Dynamics in San Diego. His love of teaching led him in 1955 to the physics department at San Jose State College (now California State University, San Jose), where he specialized in electromagnetism and solid-state electronics. He taught generations of students who went on to power the digital revolution in Silicon Valley; in appreciation of his exceptional teaching, grateful students installed an engraved bench on the Cal State San Jose campus in his honor. David was adventurous and cosmopolitan (his food preferences ran to sand dabs and dim sum from a very particular restaurant in San Francisco). For his first sabbatical in 1961, he obtained a Fulbright fellowship to spend a year to help build the physics department at the new university in the new model city of Chandigarh at the base of the Himalayas, a community of science and the future, planned by the great Modernists Le Corbusier and Jeanneret. He was delighted to be in the newly created state of India and to be present at the creation of a hub of science and technology. His next sabbatical year, 1969, was spent in Israel at the Weizmann Institute working with Ephraim Frei on electronics applied to the brain, which delighted him for another reason; he was a profound believer in the Zionist experiment. On the way to and from Israel, he took his family all over Europe. In between these two sabbaticals, he worked at and took his family to spend several summers at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York. Upon returning from Israel, David and Rebecca moved the family from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz in 1970. Deciding to base the rest of his life in the Santa Cruz area, a house was built according to his design atop a hill in Soquel in 1974. He reveled in the view it afforded him of Monterey Bay until the end of his days. David loved sailing, playing tennis, and rooting for the San Francisco 49ers and the Golden State Warriors. He never lost his love of culture, especially museums and theater: he and his wife had season tickets to the American Conservatory Theater for many years and he loved having amateur play-readings at his house, with Neil Simon and Arthur Miller among his favorites. They also frequented the many museums of San Francisco, with the De Young Museum being particularly cherished (they were proud to be listed on the wall of donors). He also loved movies, such as those directed by Jean Renoir and Elia Kazan. For many years, he was the fiercely attached owner of a blue 1960 TR-3 convertible and became of necessity a skilled Triumph mechanic. David retired from San Jose State in 1988 and daily speed-walked a mile on Capitola Wharf until the month before he died. It was on Capitola Wharf he had placed a plaque commemorating his marriage to Rebecca, and he continued to visit it every day thereafter. Also named on the plaque are his children and grandchildren, a testament to his enduring and ardent love for his family. Gregarious, charming raconteur David Carter died at his hilltop home in Soquel on August 10, 2017 of metastatic cancer, in a swift passage. He was preceded in death by his wife Rebecca. He is survived by his children Joel (wife Queena Lee), Paul, and Emily (husband Bruce Koel), along with two grandchildren, Inanna Leilani Carter and Adam Carter Koel. He is also survived by a sister, Janet Leavitt. A memorial service is planned for December 3, 2017; for details, contact Emily Carter ([email protected]). The family suggests in lieu of flowers that a donation be made to The Nature Conservancy or The Southern Poverty Law Center, or that a tree be planted in Israel via the Jewish National Fund.