Abigail Beutler

Obituary of Abigail Elaine Beutler

Abigail Elaine Beutler, née Caplan, age 88, died on Saturday, October 27, 2018 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A dedicated mother and grandmother, Abigail was an accomplished physicist and engineer.

 

Born to Ida Levinson Caplan and Moses Caplan and raised in Boston, her education started at the prestigious Girls Latin School. She then earned her Bachelor of Science in Physics from Radcliffe College (now Harvard).  A pioneer in many ways, she spent most of her time during her college years taking classes at Harvard as Radcliffe did not offer them. She was one of few, if any, women in many of these courses.  After graduating in 1950, she married Frederick Beutler.

 

Her life was marked by significant academic and professional achievement. She earned a Masters in Science Education from Boston University (’51), and expected to go into teaching, but instead accepted a job offer from North American Aviation. She went on to receive a Masters in Physics from the University of Michigan (’60), and worked in space physics at the University in Ann Arbor, while also raising three children.  She subsequently earned a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University (’65).

 

She was honored as an Amelia Earhart fellow through Zonta International in 1964 and was a long time member of the Society for Women Engineers. In 1968, she applied to be a female astronaut with NASA, but was ultimately denied, as were all other female applicants at that time. She moved back to the Boston area to study the re-entry physics of missiles at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory where she worked mainly on classified Air Force projects. Then she went on to work at General Motors as an engineering manager in the Pontiac division.  From there, her career took her to a program manager role at General Electric.  She finished her career at MITRE Corp and retired to Nashua, New Hampshire.

 

As a retiree, she was quite active, including ice skating with a precision skating team (the Acton Ups), playing viola and being on the board of the Nashua Chamber Orchestra, teaching piano lessons, playing clarinet in the Hollis Town Band and tutoring high school students in mathematics and physics. She was a certified flight instructor, owned and co-owned several light aircrafts, and was president of an aviation company, Abby Aero. She was a member of the National Association of Flight Instructors, and Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.  She was also an adjunct professor at Lesley College in Cambridge, Mass. Truly a wide range of accomplishments for a trail blazing woman!

 

She is survived by her three children, Arthur David Beutler (Lynn), Kathryn Ruth Peterson (Keith), and Michael Ernest Beutler (Yetunde), plus grandchildren and great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents and her only brother, David Caplan.

 

May her memory be an inspiration to all the lives that she touched.

A Memorial Tree was planted for Abigail
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