JAMES B. COFFIN JR.
A memorial service will be held for retired engineer James B. Coffin Jr. on Saturday, June 12 at 11am at the Eliot Church in South Natick. Mr. Coffin, 63, died in Nokomis, FL, on April 7 after a long illness.
Mr. Coffin came to MIT's Aero-physics Laboratory in 1954 as a Northeastern University engineering co-op student and spent 20 years at the laboratory's wind tunnel before joining the Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory in 1975 as an assistant plant engineer.
In 1979, Mr. Coffin became the laboratory's plant engineer, responsible for the operation of its high-magnetic-field facility, where experiments were performed in 1982 that garnered the 1998 Nobel Prize for physics. Mr. Coffin, who graduated from Northeastern in 1959, retired in 1996.
Mr. Coffin is survived by his wife, Ann, of Nokomis and Falmouth, MA; three daughters, Trudy Campbell of Marlboro, MA, Teri Cioffi of River Edge, NJ, and Tracy Coffin of Gastonia, NC; and one grandchild.
Contributions in Mr. Coffin's memory may be made to the American Cancer Society.
HENRY BELDING
Henry Belding, 68, of Nashua, NH, a former senior stock clerk at Lincoln Laboratory, died on April 26. He retired in 1992 after 39 years with MIT. Survivors include three daughters, Joanne Eldredge of Kennebunk, ME, Dorren Belding of Medford and Patricia Sullivan of Broken Arrow, OK; two sons, Henry Belding Jr. and Charles Mulik of Wilmington, MA.
GEORGE A. MacLEOD
A funeral was held on February 26 for George A. MacLeod, 72, of Watertown, a former senior stock clerk at Lincoln Laboratory who died on February 17. He was hired in 1968 and retired in 1990. Mr. MacLeod is survived by his wife, Mildred; a daughter, Ethlyn I. Freda of Billerica; a son, George A. MacLeod III of Laconia, NH; three sisters, Helen Campbell, Dorothy Leonard and Edith Hardy all of Somerville; and three grandchildren. He was buried in Ridgelawn Cemetery in Watertown.
PAUL J. STRATFORD
A funeral Mass was said at Sacred Heart Church in Lexington on February 24 for Paul J. Stratford, 83, of Woburn, who died on February 21. He was a former Campus Police patrol officer who retired in 1978 after working at MIT for 15 years.
Mr. Stratford is survived by his wife, Irene; two sons, Paul Jr. of Lexington and Stephen of Needham; two daughters, Sheila Savits of Pittsburg, PA, and Regina Henneberry of Lexington; a sister, Phylis McDermott; and 13 grandchildren. He was buried in Westview Cemetery in Lexington.
A version of this article appeared in the May 19, 1999 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 43, Number 31).
