Thomas Ivan Marx passed away peacefully at the age of 90 on June 15, 2021 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. He is survived by his wife Eva (Fischer) and children Lynn of Eugene, Oregon, Ernie of Fort Collins, Colorado, and grandchildren Kate, Charlie and Nathalie. He is also survived by his brother Richard of Clayton, Missouri and several nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his parents Sidney and Florence (Cohen).
Tom was born July 28, 1930 in St. Louis, Missouri. He lived his early years in University City after which his family moved to Clayton where he graduated from Clayton High School in 1948. He earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 1952 after which he worked for Westinghouse in Philadelphia. He joined the US Army in 1954 and was stationed at Frankford Arsenal in North Philadelphia.
A highpoint of his army service was time spent in Alaska testing an optical device for tanks. He was discharged in 1956 after which he returned to the Midwest to work at Midwest Research Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, where he devoted much of his time to developing biomedical instruments, including a fetal heart monitor, an automatic blood pressure cup, and a heart-lung machine.
After his marriage to Eva in 1956 he moved to Prairie Village, Kansas. In 1962 the family moved to Hingham, Massachusetts, and Tom joined Fisher Pierce in Braintree, where he worked as an electrical engineer developing instrumentation for electrical utilities until his retirement in 2002. After retirement he volunteered at the Timilty Middle School in Roxbury, supporting science teachers as part of the RESEED program (Retirees Enhancing Science Education through Experiments and Demonstrations).
He enjoyed music, especially Beethoven. In his later years he and Eva regularly attended Tanglewood’s end-of-season concert, which featured Tom’s favorite Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He also enjoyed art lessons at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, where he undertook painting with Roz Farbush and woodcuts, one of which was displayed at the art center’s annual arts festival. He served on the Building Committee at Old Ship Church in Hingham for a number of years, some as chair. He enjoyed problem solving and repairing things around the house, often making it unnecessary to call upon electricians and plumbers. In 2012 he and Eva moved to Linden Ponds. In 2014 he moved to the Memory Care Unit at Rose Court, where he received excellent care, for which the family is grateful.
Donations in his memory may be made to:
Old Ship Church, 107 Main Street, Hingham, MA 02043, or a charity of your choice
A Memorial Service for Mr. Marx will be held on Saturday July 31, 2021 at 2 P.M. at Linden Ponds Performing Arts Center (Derby Clubhouse)
To send flowers
to the family or plant a tree
in memory of Thomas Ivan Marx, please visit our floral store.