Larry died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family, on October 19, 2003. He is survived by his loving wife of 57 years, Dorothy, who cared for him during his long battle Patti Prunhuber, and by Tomasz Komar, his longtime caregiver who became part of his family. Larry enjoyed the company of his three grandchildren, Cody and Elena Cutting and Skyler Prunhuber Doak, and his niece and nephew Carol and Roger Prunhuber.

He was born in 1917 and grew up in New York City and Queens, the son of a mother from Russia and a father who was born in the U.S. but raised in Germany. His younger brother Carlton, with whom he remained close, preceded him in death by just three weeks.

He graduated from Long Island University and Columbia Teachers' College. He served in the Air Corps during WWII, training pilots how to read meteorological equipment. Larry taught science at the Manhasset High Schools for almost 30 years, and over time became a 10th grade biology teacher. He was known for guiding students through fruit fly experiments and dissecting frogs. He was also a mentor and sympathetic ear for his students. Even today, many of his students recall his influence in opening new horizons to them. They also recall with fondness his sense of humor, including the "snipe" hunts.

Larry shared his love of the outdoors with Dotty and his daughters, and with several generations of students, introducing them to camping and fishing trips throughout the American West. In the1950s, Larry and a carload of teenage boys ventured to the newly admitted state of Alaska for a wilderness experience filled with salmon, bears and long miles of gravel road on the Alaska-Canada Highway. He and Dotty led ski trips to Vermont, and later the Rockies and Europe.

Larry greatly influenced not only his students, but also his daughters. All became avid skiers, outdoors enthusiasts, and gardeners. Some of Larry's daughters so adopted his love of the American West that they now live in Montana, California and Seattle.

A memorial service in celebration of his life will be held on Friday, October 24, at 3 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock, Manhasset. Remembrances in lieu of flowers may be sent to: Manhasset High School Scholarship Fund in memory of Lauren Prunhuber, or Hospice Care Network of Westbury, NY.

Those of us who have known and loved Bert Gerard have anguished with Fran and his sons at the grinding fate that Parkinson's disease dealt him for the past two years-sealing the power of speech and any physical action within the brave human being in whom love of life and faith remained undaunted. The Angel of Death took him unto Herself on October 10, 2003. The older son of Jack Goldberg and Miriam Waxman Goldberg had come into their Brooklyn world during the feast of Hanukkah, 1923. Bert was 80.

To clear my mind of all the living we did together, then to ask myself what signal aspects of his being I found most striking, one immediate image is his voluble talk, his disposition toward banter. Second, he was a dandy with a costume-certainly a hat-for every occasion. Also his essays of recollection are filled with "capers" (his word for the high jinks of his mischief-making disposition). On the Manhasset faculty he was a persistent author of subversive documents satirizing the higher administration. Finally there was Bert's emotion. Human loss and defeat and realization of human potential in courage or kindness would alike move him to tears. He wept openly more frequently than has any other of my fellows. It was somehow a psychological need that he granted himself.

I have challenged our close colleague Don Harkness to express his major impressions of Bert. He writes as follows.

Bert seethed with ambition. He sought to be at the top of his profession; and his means, following service in the submarines, was to finish his education begun at the University of Iowa. Thence it was to earn a Master's degree from Hofstra in 1952, and finally the doctorate in Guidance from NYU in 1965. These credentials of graduate study and successful teaching at Port Washington and Manhasset were tickets to try for and to reach a series of administrative roles in Long Island school districts without particularly happy results. Bert's subsequent career as director of religious education, on the other hand, was truly distinguished. He served in suburban temples from Port Washington to Scarsdale to Elkins Park; and finally he was Executive Director of the Orthodox Synagogue in Beverly Hills, California, before he "retired." At age 57 he had to keep busy, but the emptiness and uncertainties were unrewarding.

Perhaps Bert and others on the Manhasset staff of the 1950s did not realize how lucky and fulfilled we were working "under the Tower." Bert was not the only Indian to hanker for higher ground. Nonetheless, in the fall of 1953 the reorganization of instructional units, utilizing the new Junior High wing, brought an unusually heavy influx of seasoned young teachers who did much to boost the quality of the school system. Among the new hires were Fritz Mueller, "La-la" Ross, Bob Seaman, and Vin Schuman. Further, to enhance the administration's commitment to a core curriculum for 8th and 9th graders, Bob Bliss, John MacGowan, Maria Hertz, Bert Gerard, and I myself came aboard. Conviviality and sharing were immediate.

Certainly Bert shone as a natural for the "block" situation. Two of his students from those days add their testimony concerning his talents. Both Sue-Ellen Stone and Clay Davenport tell of the lively doings that brought them to new levels of appreciation. Bert's flare for the dramatic and his own zest for enlightened citizenship stretched and refined their imaginations.

It is no wonder that in the later season of career discontent, then relocated in the suburbs of Phoenix, he finally said to himself, "What the hell? I could do some substitute teaching." And lo, The Kyrene Junior High got excited about his work. Enough so that they hired him as a journalism and honors English teacher. The Principal put it to Bert this way: "We're taking a chance on you. You're overqualified, overage, over-everything." The fact is that over the six years of his tenure he became endeared to the entire school community. He wanted to be known as "Doc" Gerard--and wore a baseball cap to prove it.

As the grip of Parkinson's handicapped him seriously, in 1996 an enduring honor for his varied gifts was declared. A new computer technology center at the school bears his name.

How proud his uncle Sam Waxman would have been. I have learned from Bert's writings which reconstitute the early years (paying long overdue debts and doing honor to several family members) that Sam was his educational hero. When in 1946 he changed his name from "Bubsie" Goldberg (Who wouldn't ?) to Bert S. Gerard, I never heard what the S stood for, but it has to have been for Samuel. Bert patterned his life on this brilliant scholar of Spanish and French, whose prize essay at Harvard was entitled "The Don Juan Legend in Literature." Bert truly fancied himself as that picaresque hero, while being aware of Sam's marked aptitude for dissention. BU Professor Waxman after long service was quoted by a colleague as follows.

I like to think that as a teacher my tiny contribution to my pupils has been as much in the domain of wisdom as in that of learning. And as my favorite Spanish author, Miguel de Unamuno often explained, quoting Giordano Bruno: "I am an awakener of sleeping souls."

Indeed, Bert S. Gerard was his uncle's nephew-a teacher of unusual distinction.

- Edgar H. Knapp