Craig M. Garretson

My father, Craig M. Garretson, was the most organized person I knew. Years before he died at age 99 on June 7th, 2024, he crafted his own obituary, deciding it was important that you knew he was a professor emeritus of Long Island University where he taught physics and engineering for 32 years. He forfeited a full scholarship to The Cooper Union to join the Marine Corps where he fought with the First Division in the Okinawa campaign during WWII. The scholarship was reinstated upon his return and he earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Cooper Union. He went on to earn a PhD in Electrophysics from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn while working full time and raising a family.

As one of his daughters, I think it is far more important that you know he was a truly good man. He was kind and generous. He valued education and put all of his children and grandchildren through college. There was not a National Park he didn’t love, a sunset that wasn’t appreciated, a stray cat that wasn’t welcomed into our family. He loved to swim his whole life, but learned to swim well thanks to the Marine Corps and continued to swim until Covid closed the pools. Our childhood bedtime stories were lessons in scientific principles. We were bribed with quarters to memorize important things like the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence or the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. He taught us the names of all of the northern constellations and the mythologies inspired by them. He is the only person I know who read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z. When it was time for him to move in with us, we had to keep building him bookcases to house all of the books he would pick up at library and garage sales - all nonfiction, he continued to relish learning something new.

He married our mother, Muriel in 1949 and they almost made it to 60 years before she died in 2009. They had 3 cherished daughters- Catherine, Christine and Laura. Our parents always said they were each other’s “one true love” so we are hoping that they have found each other again.

To his grandchildren Jesse, Christoffer, Amelia, Michael, Celeste, Maggie, Esme, Austin and Brianna, please know he loved you and the families you built. To his great grandchildren Sam, Alyx, Zoe, Oliver, Andrew, Paul, Lily, Hendrik, Lola and McKinley, he loved the miracle of you.

He taught me many things, but 4 things he would repeat were #1 - keep your word, it is a measure of you; #2 be kind to animals and nature; #3 if you want it done right, learn how to do it yourself; #4 save for a rainy day and buy land because it is the one thing they are not making any more of.

Our family is less without him. If you want to honor his memory, pay a little kindness forward.
He’ll see it.

Goodbye Daddy. We love you.