Rodney - Age 79 - Los Alamos - Thurston

Rodney Sundby Thurston , was born September 17, 1933 in Brooklyn NY, and lived his early years and some of his high school and college years in the home that was originally his grandparents in the southern part of Brooklyn several blocks in from Greys End Bay. Rodeny died after almost a year long battle with progressive pulmonary fibrosis that culminated in June 22, 2013. Rodney’s mind was sharp throughout his illness; he decided to dictate his obituary. When asked what he was most grateful for in life Rodney always said a loving marriage with his wife Diane of over 39 years. Rodney strongly felt that a loving marriage is the best experience on earth. He was also grateful for the children that he raised with Diane and helping them to find their own very different satisfying careers in life and in general being all around good citizens. Rodney is also grateful for the extended family that raised him in his early years and the encouragement and support that the extended family provided later on until he was through with college and married. Rodney was born in the height of the depression, he was raised at a time with his grandparents. They had the only steady successful income in the extended family when everybody in the intermediary generation seemed to be out of work for a while and he was the only child of his generation, he was thoroughly spoiled. He was grateful to his mother Emma for her steadfast love and key decisions she made. Emma and Wilbur had a daughter Linda in 1942, 9 years after Rodney was born, Rodney now had at least one other family member that was raised in his household until the years that he left and went to college at Columbia. Wilbur Thurston taught Rodney by example the real judge by character is to raise the child to be a responsible adult. A special interest was taken in him by his mother’s older sister Wanda and her husband Harold Hines, they carried that interest into guiding Rodney’s studies through high school and offered to pay his tuition at Columbia University to study engineering which he did receive a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Mechanical engineering at Columbia. He was also a member of the varsity swimming team at Columbia where he was a commuting student from the home that was originally his grandparents on the southern side of Brooklyn to Morningside heights in Manhattan. That took about a three hour a day travel time. He was on the swimming varsity and between swimming workouts and commuting time, Rodney acquired self discipline that helped him carry through to get his PhD. After he completed his MS degree, he heralded West with his small family in a VW bus to take a job in LA. Starting in August 1959 the first project that he worked on this nuclear rocket engine on the Rover Project. While working on this project, he also took evening graduate course towards a PhD. Then took a year’s leave of absence to put in residency while taking courses at UNM before coming back to LA to do his doctoral dissertation on a problem that had temporarily stalled the nuclear rocket engine program and the problem had to do with very nasty vibrations associated with heat transfer through liquid hydrogen. Through his study of thermodynamics Rodney found a simple solution for the program which went on to be very successful. That also became the basis for Rodney’s doctorial dissertation at UNM. As Rodney was winding up his work in cryogenics the lab director, Norris Bradbury, mentioned in an annual meeting that the lab was given a new program and they could not hire cleared personnel fast enough because of the clearance requirements and asked people who were not engaged already in weapons related work if they could volunteer some of their time to get the program started with the support of the group leader, Ed Hamil. Rodney volunteered and joined W-4, Bob Canada and Rodney was assigned to work on a new problem, basically studying what it took to destroy a ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead well above the atmosphere so the nuclear warhead would not explode and would essentially be a dud before it entered the atmosphere. A group was formed devoted to this problem; because Rodney was one of the early ones to work on the problem, he was made assistant group leader and later associate group leader. The work was quite successful and basically resulted in a Los Alamos making a technical contribution to the anti ballistic missile treaty. About this time, Rodney got a divorce and took practical custody of five children from the first marriage. After 9 or 10 months, he met Diane and was totally smitten by her; proposed marriage; she asked him to get serious and when he said he was, she accepted. They were married December 2, 1973, so we now had 6 children and lots of debt to handle. Those 6 children needed a stay at home mom so Diane took on that responsibility. Rodney had a very enjoyable 35 years career with the lab, working many areas, in and out of management, in and out of research and he highly recommends Los Alamos for younger people for its great teamwork. Everyone is always learning something new and teaching others something new and learning is something we all enjoy form childhood. After retirement, Rodney stayed on at the lab for 11 years as a guest scientist until his eyesight degraded where he had difficulty reading. As a service to the community Rodney participated in an effort to establish a Los Alamos civil rights ordinance in the early 1960’s before the national law was passed. He was also active in scouting as a Weblos den leader and assisted with the Explorer scouts later on. He also served as a member of the utility board for 11 years; having to leave when his eyesight was making it difficult for him to read. Sometime in the 1980’s Rodney learned about the side of the family and what happened to it. Before then Rodney legally took the name Thurston as his family name in honor of a very gentle, kind wonderful stepfather Wilbur Thurston. His biological father had 18 children, including Rodney from different women Rodney got to meet all of the children all his brothers and sisters, except for the first that resulted in his mother’s separation and one brother who died in childbirth. Rodney liked to be physically active he started his workday with a workout with the masters swim team. He often jogged for ½ hour at lunch and on the weekends he took longer runs in the canyons and mesas south of Pajarito Acres. Rodney was a member of the L.A. masters swim club for over 30 years his favorite events were the 200 yd butterfly and the 1,650 yd freestyle. He also took part in the first 25 LA triathlons and is grateful to Bill Hudson for initiating the world’s oldest ongoing triathlon at LA. Rodney liked to take his children on backpacking trips in the Pecos wilderness which they decided to call “Fat Packing “ because of all the food that was consumed during these long trips on the trails. Rodney is survived by his loving wife Diane, their daughter Kerri, Alisabeth and her husband Paul and their son Parker; and daughter Suzanne and her husband John, son Jon and his wife Tali and daughter Monica. Rodney was preceded in death by his son Dave, an outstanding L.A. school science teacher. A memorial service will be held on Friday, June 28, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. at the White Rock Methodist Church, located at 580 Meadow Lane, White Rock NM 87544. The family of Rodney Thurston has entrusted their loved one to DeVargas Funeral Home & Crematory of the Española Valley.\r\n

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