Louis M. Sandler, age 71, died peacefully on November 18, 2020, at the Tippett Hospice Home, with his wife and son by his bedside. A resident of Needham, MA. Lou is survived by his wife of 37 years Toby (Barthoff) Sandler and his son Harry of Steamboat Springs, CO. Also survived by his father Donald M. Sandler and his wife Lynne of Alexandria, VA., his sisters Miriam (Sandler) Berkowitz and her husband Jeffrey of Vienna, VA and Minda (Sandler) Lehto and her husband T. Eric of Bend, OR. He was predeceased by his mother Harriet (Broady) Sandler. Also enjoyed and admired by a large extended family.
Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Lou graduated from Baltimore City College at age 16 (1966) and received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology (1970). Upon graduation he worked at Teradyne and then LTX, Intrinsix, Emulex, and several start-up firms in the Boston area. He excelled and enjoyed working with colleagues developing new products and figuring out bugs in the systems. He also had a successful consulting career prior to retirement.
From an early age Lou enjoyed tinkering with and fixing machines, including when he helped out at his grandfather’s ice cream cone factory. Soon he became known to his family and friends as Mr. Fix-It. Always willing to lend a helping hand, he helped friends build outdoor showers, swimming pools, finish a basement, design stable legs on a sailboat and fix appliances and toys. Around his neighborhood he was known for lending tools and snowplowing neighbors’ driveways and sidewalks. When he became a father he enjoyed building things with his son.
With a large group of friends Lou spent summers at a house on Cape Cod and winters at a ski house in Vermont. After marrying, he continued to enjoy traveling, skiing and camping, where he was a champ at tying knots to hold up the tarps. When his health worsened, he took up adaptive skiing, which he thoroughly enjoyed.
While not loquacious, he had a wry sense of humor that all enjoyed and excelled at creating limericks. Lou was a long time volunteer with the Needham Concert Society and tutored math at the Needham High School after retirement.
Lou developed Type I diabetes as a child, but he proved over his 71 years that it’s possible to live a long and full life with this disease. Lou and his family will be forever grateful to the very special people who donated a kidney and pancreas so that he could enjoy more years of good health. For most of 2020 Lou battled complications from diabetes and renal disease. When his body could no longer heal, he made the brave and admirable decision to choose hospice care in order to enjoy his last few days peacefully with family and friends.
Lou and his family are extremely grateful to the surgeons, medical specialists and staff at the Newton-Wellesley, Beth-Israel-Deaconness and Brigham and Women’s hospitals. These fine people plus his home care aides treated Lou with the finest care and compassion. All of them were amazed at his bravery and determination in the face of extended and complex illnesses.
Access to factual information and data was important to Lou. He supported the mission of Wikipedia to be independent and free to all and asked that donations be made in his memory to Wikipedia. https://donate.wikimedia.org or to the charity of your choice.
Due to Covid restrictions no public services are scheduled at this time. To join Lou’s Memorial Service on Sunday, November 22 at 2:00pm EST via Zoom, please email [email protected].
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