Lew Stetz – 90 – passed away peacefully at home 6 March 2023 surrounded by his wife Marjorie, four children, and several grandchildren after a brief illness. He was the son of the late Lewis & Helen Stetz of Glenolden, PA.
Following graduation from Glen-Nor High School, he worked for Bell Telephone briefly before joining the US Navy. He served on destroyers following the Korean war as a radio and communications technician.
After the Navy, he and his young family moved briefly to Mission Beach, California where he worked for Burroughs on Jacques Cousteau’s diving saucer. He returned to Pennsylvania and settled down in Levittown and spent the next 35 years raising four children while working for RCA David Sarnoff Research Laboratory in Princeton, NJ.
During his career at RCA, he was awarded several patents for submarine antennae design as well as engaging in clandestine signals intelligence missions during the Cold War. Later, he worked on high-definition television transmission systems and occasionally for NBC Studios in New York City.
Not content with his accomplishments at work, he personally expanded the family’s three-bedroom home to six bedrooms to accommodate the growing family where he and his wife still reside. In 1974, he took a two-month leave of absence so that the family could tour 30 of the 50 United States via automobile and trailer. He entertained his children with novel hand-built devices like a mock-up Gemini space capsule, an electric mini-bike, a hovercraft made from an attic fan and angle aluminum, and – the kid’s favorite – a ‘shock box’ that provided non-lethal jolts of electricity to anyone brave enough to hold the handles. He also served as Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 110 and tolerated their frequent winter camping trips.
Retirement did not slow him down. He maintained a full machine shop and electronics laboratory where he continued to make and invent energy-efficient light fixtures using the latest LEDs until the last weeks of his life. He and his wife rode bicycles and traveled to visit their adult children. Additionally, he volunteered at the Bristol Township Senior Center collecting food from nearby grocery stores.
Services will be held at Langhorne Presbyterian Church, 125 East Gillam Ave. on Monday, 13 March 2023. Visiting starts at 1:00; service at 2:00. A burial service at Washington’s Crossing Military Cemetery is being planned for June. Donations in lieu of flowers can be made to the Langhorne Presbyterian Church.
_________________ [size=85]In Memory of Daddy, Uncle Roy, Uncle Earl, Uncle Stan, Ed, Steve, Stretch, Al, Eddie, Kat and Lee. In Honor of Capt. Walter Sigafoos and ADJ3 Paul Moser - still missing.[/size]
_________________ [size=85]In Memory of Daddy, Uncle Roy, Uncle Earl, Uncle Stan, Ed, Steve, Stretch, Al, Eddie, Kat and Lee. In Honor of Capt. Walter Sigafoos and ADJ3 Paul Moser - still missing.[/size]
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