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Samuel 'Sam' Weiss San Diego, CA QCWA # 8311 |
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Sam Weiss April 14, 2019 San Diego Sam Weiss passed away peacefully at home on Sunday, April 14, 2019, surrounded by his family.
He was 105, born in January 1914 in Brooklyn, NY to Aaron and Sadie (Fleischer) Weiss.
At age 5, Sam moved to Monticello, NY in the Catskill Mountains where he gained his love for the outdoors, hiking, swimming and fishing. It was also in Monticello where he developed his interest in radio after finding a book on crystal radio sets in a burn pile behind a local store.
This early interest in radios turned into his lifelong career working various positions ending up at Consolidated Aircraft (which later became Convair then General Dynamics) in San Diego in 1944 finally retiring as a Sr Electronics Engineer in 1971 at the age of 57.
Ham radio was always an important part of Sam's life: He earned his Radio Telephone Operator License in 1941 and at the time of his death, was the oldest continually licensed ham radio operator in the United States. In ham radio circles he was known as W6VCD, "Sam The Ham."
He married his best friend, Blanche, in 1934, two years after meeting at a Sweet 16 party in Brooklyn. The marriage lasted 81 years, one of the longest on record.
In 1936, they packed everything they owned into their car and headed to California. Thinking they were going to settle in Los Angeles or San Francisco, they made a stop in San Diego to visit his sister and brother-in-law who was in the Navy.
They decided to stay; he went downtown and got a job at Thearles Music the next day working on radios. A year later they became homesick and made a short move back to NY until 1940 when they again returned to San Diego to make it home.
While working at General Dynamics, he purchased 3-1/2 acres on Mt. Helix and hand built the home of their dreams, where they lived for the next 11 years.
After retiring, they traveled the US, Canada and Mexico in their RV for 10 years before settling in Yuma, AZ, where he took on the project of building another home.
After 14 years, they returned to San Diego where they lived out the rest of their lives, surrounded by family and friends. At age 95, Sam wrote his autobiography: "Sam Weiss 95 Years Of Memories" which he entered into his computer with scanned pictures and had published into a hardcover book.
Sam was a caring, content and appreciative person who always made the best of what life offered. He was accepting of people, welcomed them into his life and was not one to hold a grudge. He knew the meaning of gratitude, compassion and humility. Sam always looked at the positive, never the negative which he encouraged his family to do the same.
Sam had a love of music, being self-taught on the accordion and harmonica. Throughout his life he loved singing, especially songs and music from the 1930's through 1950's, remembering every word.
When people would ask Sam the secret of his long and rich life, he would reply: "Keep Smiling" and his favorite Yiddish expression: "Azoy gait es" (That's how it goes).
He is survived by his sons Marty (Ruth) and Howard (Raven), his daughter Eleanor (Jim) Buskirk, 11 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
Published in The San Diego Union Tribune on May 12, 2019
On Jul 1, 2018, at 22:59, William Calderwood <billk1ct@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ron -
Per your request, I visited Sam Weiss today in the Del Cerro area of San Diego. I dropped by Sam's license QTH. Sam lives with his son Marty and Marty's wife Ruth. Sam has a current ham license but has not been active in ham radio for a number of years. He was very pleased to hear about the QCWA interest in him. I invited him to our meeting on 5 August and Marty says he'll get Sam there.
Sam is quite lucid. He gets around with a walker and he enjoys a cuppa wine now and then. I've attached a photo that I took as we chatted about old times and ham radio. I looked through Sams scrap book and got to see some of his early ham experiences like building a 160 meter vertical antenna. Marty gave me some of Sam's old ham radio junk box and promises to bring some of the other stuff to the QCWA meeting. In Sam's scrapbook was information that he'd worked for Consolidated aircraft as a radio engineer building B-24 Liberator bombers at the plant in San Diego during the war. Sam has lived in San Diego since the 30's when he came from the east coast.
It was quite a pleasure meeting Sam and his son's family. I hope this gives you what you need for your research.
73, Bill K1CT
