Darol Chamberlain

Darol Chamberlain of Ithaca, New York passed away suddenly from a cardiac event on Saturday August 5th, 2017.

Darol grew up in Berkeley, California, and had a lifelong love for California, especially the Sierras, where he spent many happy weeks at the family cabin, Watawangawa, originally built by his great-grandfather. He was a talented potter, gracing friends' and family shelves with beautiful and functional pieces. His other passions included setting up impossibly elaborate model train systems, often around the family Christmas tree.

Darol arrived on the East Coast by way of NYC where he met his wife of 40+ years, Jane Mt. Pleasant. Their story of meeting while taxi cab drivers in the city and figuring out where to go next is one worth hearing. While they were there, Darol and Jane worked to strengthen and democratize the taxi cab driver's union. Darol's political commitment continued throughout his life, taking many forms: activism, volunteer work on local and national campaigns, local hotlines, and a constant steady hand guiding his community and world towards equity and justice.

Darol was the head of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) electronics team, and a highly-valued member of the Clark Hall detector group at the Cornell Physics department. For CHESS, he supervised other staff in their day-to-day tasks and, most importantly, interfaced with both technical and scientific staff to make sure the laboratory functioned at peak performance. His expertise in electronics meant that he was the all-important "central nervous system" of the laboratory, since wires, cables and electronics boxes invented by Darol interfaced people and computers to all the other hardware in the lab. He also spent considerable time supervising Cornell and community college students during their summer projects. To Darol's credit, these projects often resulted in creating small "widget" boxes that were so full of functions and useful that all the staff scientists would approach Darol requesting copies of the useful equipment for their own x-ray stations. His ingenuity helped modernize the lab and improve the research capabilities in creative and marked ways.

Darol is survived by his wife, Jane, his sons Rafael (Kimberly) and Lowell, his daughter Margit, and his sisters Karen, Lynne, and Pia (Ruth). He had three grandchildren whom he loved and adored. He cherished their time together, especially in the pool at the YMCA. He was predeceased by his parents Owen Chamberlain and Baba Copper.

A kind, caring, and loving husband, father, brother, grandfather, and friend to many, Darol will be greatly missed. Services will be held on Thursday, August 10, 2017 from 4pm-6pm at Anabel Taylor on Cornell Campus. All are welcome to join and celebrate Darol's life. In lieu of flowers, contributions to the Trailblazers PAC (www.TrailblazersPAC.com), the YMCA of Ithaca, or a progressive political cause of your choice would be appreciated.