Ted Tucker
September 12, 1926 – March 10, 2022

Ted Tucker “kicked the bucket” this week and those were his preferred words.

Ted’s early years were in Rochester, NY., the son of the Architect Cyril Tucker and Betty Tucker. There he had a small machine shop where he was a gunsmith with an extensive collection of modern and antique firearms. He was an avid hunter and always fond of the shooting sports which served him well as an Infantry Officer in WWII and an Ordinance Officer in the Korean War. In the latter, he helped develop the Corporal Missile at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

He graduated from The University of Rochester with a Master of Engineering Degree in 1951. For his thesis, he cast, machined and produced a unique “Stratified Charge” engine and then went to MIT to study Nuclear Engineering.

While there, he began the hand construction of his small one-level house near Lincoln, MA, which was to receive his machine shop and collections. His house avoided stairs which become a problem in later years. This he worked on alone over weekends and evenings and there is a bronze plaque on this in the northeast corner. At the latter stage, in the fall, he invited Bobbi Howe to build the left side of the brick fireplace. She was so enthusiastic, and they married in December 1955.

He enjoyed thinking about his house as like that done by the “bower bird” which as you know, ties some tall grass together to make a resting site for trinkets. When he has deposited enough shiny things to convince the lady bower bird to consider him viable, she stays. In this case it may have been the fresh well water gushing out of the ground or those fireplace bricks.

For the new house hardware, he erected a full Blacksmith Shop, which became a thriving business and a school. He taught the Smiths at Sturbridge and Shelbourne Village as well as the Centers for Adult Education. For a text he wrote “Practical Projects for the Blacksmith” which is available at Blue Moon Publishers and is translated in several languages at Rodale. It always pleased him to supply artistic hardware from the village Smithy.

His engineering work was varied: At Concord Control, Inc. he developed a very large Cartographic System for the Army and Navy. From Instrumentation Laboratory, he holds several patents in High Vacuum Technology.

At L3 Communications he was project engineer of the first deep space camera from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, called MICAS. It was made all from silicon carbide ceramic. Another of his space camera designs was for New Horizons, for Johns Hopkins. It was launched for Pluto and was also made of silicon carbide. The preliminary wooden model he made is on the shelf at home.

Ted was a professional watercolor artist and a sculptor and his portraits in bronze still sell. One unique example for children’s art can be seen in the book, “Fast Concrete Critters” at Amazon. His website is WoodWaterIron.com. For good reason he has been called a Renaissance Man.

One of the things that pleased him was being able, at age 92, to turn in a winning .45 pistol target score of 99, with 4X’s. That’s the size of a Ritz Cracker at 50 feet.

Ted forged the iron work for the Codman Farm in Lincoln: Handles, sign supports, large hinges, all with some motif involved. Throughout the Town of Lincoln there are examples of signs and railings that he made.

He said that he looks forward to an afterlife that will re-sort his worldly chemicals into something useful. Given the choice, Ted prefers a blue or red dragonfly. It rests calmly on the back of the hand, finally lifting off on a complex aerial mission. It eats mosquitoes and certainly is not a pest as it charms all who see it.

His wife, Bobbi passed in 2019. She was the daughter of Arthur and Marcia Howe from Hastings-on-the-Hudson, NY. She went to Colby College in New Hampshire.

He leaves behind three children:

Jesse, married to Sarah, lives in Duxbury with daughter Lindel. Jesse owns a sales and marketing firm. Sarah is a handwriting examiner with Pentec, Inc. in Bloomfield, Michigan. Lindel is an accomplished equestrian and alpine skier, and is very active in 4H, showing her goats.

Lincoln lives at the family property and is a guitarist and chef.

Jennifer is married to Tom Perley in Madbury, NH with son Sam. She is a part-time nurse and a volunteer firefighter. Her husband, Tom owns Perley Technical Service, and is an Emmy winning broadcast engineer for NBC Olympic sporting events around the world. Sam is a certified chimney sweep, EMT ad firefighter and enjoys restoring antique cars.

All the children were taught how to use tools and firearms safely. They know how to cut with the table saw and an acetylene torch.