Harry Ludwig

Harry Ludwig, age 92, died at home of Parkinson's Disease on June 9, 2013. His second wife Rita Reffner took loving care of him during his final years with infinite kindness and grace.
Harry was born in Chicago in 1921. He and his twin brother Ben were the youngest in a family of 8 children and all of his brothers and sisters predeceased him.
A conscientious objector during WWII, Harry spent 4 years in civilian public service during the war as a forest fighter and working in a mental hospital. He met his first wife, Dorothy Jensen, in 1941 at a Quaker work camp and they married in 1948.
Harry had a masters degree in electrical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. He first worked in St. Louis at the Central Institute for the Deaf, where he invented a silent switch. Harry and Dorothy moved to Madison in 1954 and he began working at the UW as an Instructor in the School of Engineering. He also initially worked part-time in the School of Medicine Neurophysiology Department with Dr. Clinton Woolsey and Dr. Joe Hind, which led Harry to establish the Medical Electronics Laboratory (MEL) in the UW Medical School.
Harry was the director of MEL from 1956 to 1986 in a subbasement of the old UW Hospital on University Avenue. MEL's work included maintaining all of the hospital and medical school's electronic diagnostic equipment as well as creating new devices that the Neurophysiology Department needed for its research. Harry enjoyed his work tremendously. He treasured the opportunity to spend time at his bench in MEL, inventing new devices for medical research such as a heart rate meter.
Harry was very active in the local community. For decades he served as treasurer of numerous civic organizations, including the Westside Coalition for Older Adults, the NAACP, the UN Association, Quaker Housing, the Response to Hunger Network, and the Crestwood neighborhood where he lived--the nation's first cooperative housing association. Throughout his life he volunteered to tutor many Afro-American and foreign high school or UW students, in English and math and American culture.
Harry and Dorothy moved to Crestwood in 1954 and he lived there until his death. They had three children: Susan (Ugljesha) Pirocanac, Rebecca Ludwig (Stephen Zeldin) and David (Nancy) Ludwig, and they raised a foster child Laura (Robert) Chen. Harry is also survived by three grandchildren: Nicholas, Raphael and Elsa; by Laura's children: Bea and Noah; and by Nicholas's children (Harry's great-grandchildren): Chase, Paige and James.
Harry married Rita Reffner in 1992, which brought into his family Rita's two sons Thor and Tim, and Thor's son James. Harry and Rita shared their lives for 21 years, traveling to points far afield. They spent every season hiking in Madison's Owen Park, where a bench is dedicated in their names.
Harry loved the outdoors even if he did sometimes get lost in the woods. His idea of recreation was hiking, camping, sailing, canoeing, bird watching, star gazing, and even biking to work.
In 1967 Harry volunteered to be part of a pioneering medical research project launched by the National Institutes of Health, to study the possible benefits of exercise on heart disease. The project finished in a year but the participants didn't want to quit so the UW allowed them to keep exercising at the Natatorium. Harry was an active participant for the rest of his life, enjoying the health benefits and the new friends he met. Part of the group's standard routine was to run or walk to the base of Picnic Point. Some would keep going to the far end of the peninsula, but not Harry. As his friend Rev. Ed Beers used to say, "Harry never got to the Point."