LaVerne F. Wallace

LaVerne (Vern) Frederick Wallace, age 89, died at home on June 24, 2026 after a month at Tobey Hospital following a stroke.

Vern was raised in central New York State and graduated from Weedsport Central School in 1954, where he was the class president and voted "Most Likely to Succeed." The son of a tenant farmer and the youngest of seven, he grew up in a home with no indoor plumbing or central heat and became the first in his family to attend college. Encouraged by his high school guidance counselor and his future father-in-law, Vern earned an Associates' degree from Auburn Community College in 1956, then a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1958. To get through college, he worked full-time and served in the Army National Guard while attending classes and held two full-time jobs each summer. He married his high school sweetheart Janet while both were juniors in college. Vern had been looking forward to celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary in December, 2026.

Vern had a long and successful professional career as an engineer focused on ensuring that the equipment critical to modern life-relating to power generation, transportation, and medical devices-was safe and performed as needed. After working for Link Aviation in Binghamton, NY, which designed airplane flight simulators, Vern entered the field of experimental stress analysis, which would become the focus of his career. He worked for Baldwin Lima-Hamilton Corporation (Waltham, MA), Brewer Engineering Labs (Marion, MA)-where he rose to become Vice President of the Company and, after purchase by Teledyne Engineering, Manager and Senior Principal Engineer. In 1990, Vern and his business partner, Ricardo Bermudez, founded Sensing Systems Corporation in North Dartmouth, MA, which continued the work of system and structural design, analysis and testing. He retired from Sensing Systems in 2013 at age 76.

Vern's career in experimental stress analysis enabled him to protect the safety and well-being of others. He enjoyed the technical challenge, focus, and precision of analyzing the integrity of structures large and small, and of finding creative design solutions for system and mechanical failures, such as subway car derailments in Boston, falling luminaires on the Tri-Borough Bridge, and engine vibration problems on container ships. He was known for his incredible motivation, discipline, and energy, and he brought a strong sense of ethical integrity to each project, examining potential problems from every angle.

Much of Vern's work was done in the field, which took him all over the world, from Pakistan's Indus River and the largest earthen dam ever built, to the North Sea to install safety instrumentation on a salvage barge, and across North America. In his twenties, while working for BLH, he earned two patents for a weight and center of gravity system for Kodak space equipment. Over the span of his career, Vern conducted structural integrity tests on 45 nuclear power plants in the United States and served on the federal committee that wrote the structural standards for nuclear power plants. He also created fingertip sensors for wounded veterans that enable a robotic hand to have human feeling and capability, which were featured on the cover of National Geographic.

Despite the travel demands and long hours of his job, Vern found time for his family and for community and church life. He engaged with each of his five children on their interests and supported them in their individual talents. Moreover, many who grew up in Marion remember Vern as a guiding figure in their youth, teaching them practical and ethical life skills. His involvement with Boy Scouts was an extension of this, and he loved leading camping and canoeing trips.

When his wife Janet became an ordained United Methodist minister in the 1980s, Vern embraced his new role as clergy spouse at the churches they served together in Long Plain, Southbridge, Westport Point, and Bridgewater, MA. He was active on church boards at the local, district and conference levels on the United Methodist Church. He was also involved in Habitat for Humanity, in charge of site acquisition for the Fall River affiliate. After his retirement, Vern spent summers at Chautauqua Institution in New York State, where he and Janet operate an apartment house and where he enjoyed daily lectures, concerts and visits by family.

Though Vern grew up in a home with no books, when his sister gifted him his first book-Short Cuts in Figures-at age 12, it catapulted his proficiency in math, which eventually sparked his engineering career. In his retirement, Vern read about a book per week, often about the human spirit and the ways people overcome challenges. He was driven by an unwavering sense of justice and equality, and supported efforts to create a more just world.

Vern is survived by his wife Janet (Fults) Wallace, three sons Gregory Wallace and his husband Craig Sheppard, Timothy Wallace and his wife Deirdre Donovan Wallace, Andrew Wallace and his wife Dawn Wallace, and daughter Ann Wallace and her fiancé Konstantin Vail, and twelve grandchildren, Allison, Tyler, Connor, Sean, Kyle, Brendan, Rebecca, Alexander, Sophie, Katerina, Molly, and Connie. He is predeceased by all of his siblings and by his oldest son Christopher J. Wallace, who died in 2024.

The family held a private green burial service for Vern at Rock Ridge Cemetery in Sharon, MA. A public memorial service will be held in the pavilion at The Marion Council on Aging, 465 Mill Street (Route 6), Marion, MA at 11am on Saturday, July 25, followed by a reception at the Wallace home at 17 Pleasant Street, Marion. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Buzzards Bay affiliate of Habitat for Humanity at buzzardsbayhabitat.org. (https://buzzardsbayhabitat.org/donate/). Funeral arrangements handled by Saunders-Dwyer Funeral Home of Mattapoisett.