Nathan Edward Lindgren
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Nathan Edward Lindgren died at his home in Concord on February 25, 2020 from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He accepted and bore the years of his final illness with exemplary dignity and fortitude. He was 78 years old.
Nate was born in Chicago on 6 May 1941 to C. Edward ("Ed") Lindgren and his wife, the former Gladys Lohre. After a few years the family moved to Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, where Nate attended school and grew to young adulthood. Along the way he played clarinet in his high school band; but his real love and focus was athletics. Tall and lanky, he was a center on the basketball team and, as a member of the track team, ran sprints and pole-vaulted. He was a distance runner throughout most of his life. His passion for the outdoors also emerged early. He loved scouting and, with a natural penchant to excel at whatever he undertook, he became an Eagle Scout.
As a young teenager he began his lifelong hobby of fossil-collecting, starting his searches along the shores of the Great Lakes. Throughout his extensive travels he hunted for invertebrate fossils, researched and cataloged them, resulting in a collection that rivals many small natural history museums. His wife knew she was very special when, on their first date, he presented her with a crinoid from his collection.
Nate majored in physics and minored in religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. In 2019 he was chosen for St. Olaf's Distinguished Alumni Award. Upon graduation he entered the Peace Corps and was among one of the first groups of volunteers sent abroad, to Sierra Leone. Nate considered this experience a highlight of his life, where he developed a deep love and respect for Africa and its peoples. From there he earned a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, which he used to return to Africa to teach physics at the University of Malawi.
In the mid-seventies Nate decided that he needed to get "a real job," which he sort of did. He became a research scientist in the Ballistic Missile Defense Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington-a perfect fit for him. Nate had a creative intellect and a physical intuition that was highly respected by his peers. Many of Nate's contributions have been pivotal in U.S. defense systems that are currently deployed around the world. Nate retired in 2014 as a senior staff member-although he did return to the University of Malawi once more in 1985 as a Fulbright Scholar.
Nate was always the smartest person in the room, but you would never have heard that from him. He always promoted other people's gifts rather than trumpeting his own. What you would immediately recognize in Nate, though, was his overarching kindness.
Nate and his wife loved being at their home in Acworth, where Nate was renowned for his well-engineered woodpiles.
Mourning Nate's presence in their lives are his wife, Denise Picard Lindgren of Concord, Massachusetts, and Acworth, New Hampshire (formerly of Lexington); brother, David, and his wife, Ruth, of Carmichael, California; and special cousin Pastor John Lohre and his wife, Mary, of Lake City, Minnesota, as well as several other cousins in the Midwest and members of the Catholic community at Holy Family Parish in Concord.
Throughout his illness Denise was Nate's primary caregiver, a role she gladly relinquishes fully to God, who will do a much better job of it.
Nate's life was celebrated during a Funeral Mass in March at Holy Family Parish in Concord, MA. He was laid to rest at St. Bernard's Cemetery in Concord.
Memorial contributions would be gratefully received for the Nathan and Denise Lindgren Endowed Fund for Student Research at St. Olaf College, c/o Rebecca M. Otten, 1520 St. Olaf Avenue, Northfield, MN 55057. Um! Yah! Yah!
Arrangements were under the care of Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord, MA. To share a remembrance or to offer a condolence in Nate's online guestbook, please visit www.DeeFuneralHome.com.