J. Bruce Medaris Jr., patriotic citizen
Lt. Col. J. Bruce Medaris Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.) of Rehoboth Beach passed away Sunday, April 21, 2024, as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident April 19 in Bethany Beach. Bruce is lovingly remembered as a devoted husband and father, a doting grandfather, a caring friend, a proud soldier and patriotic citizen, an intellectually curious learner, a patient teacher, a voracious reader of historical nonfiction and complex suspense novels, an automotive enthusiast, an accomplished marksman, a jack-of-all-trades home DIYer, and an avid (and sometimes frustrated) golfer.
Bruce was born Nov. 10, 1936, to parents Virginia Smith and Maj. Gen. John Bruce Medaris Sr., U.S. Army (Ret.) in Madison, Wis. He graduated from The Bullis School (formerly a military boarding school in Washington, D.C.) before attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He met Dorothy Anne Hellriegel thanks to a fortuitous blind date in 1957, and they were married three days after he graduated in 1959. Bruce and Dorothy loved and tolerated, laughed and cried, fought and made up for 63 years until Dorothy's death in June 2022. Bruce often said 63 years was "Just not enough time." They had three children in their first four years of marriage: Virginia Davis (deceased) of McLean, Va. (husband James), Kathleen Widmer of Yardley, Pa. (husband Robert), and Maria O'Shea of Rehoboth Beach and Baltimore, Md. (husband Patrick).
Bruce served in the U.S. Army Field Artillery and Ordnance divisions, which included two combat deployments to Vietnam and one hardship tour in Korea. At the end of his 20-year military career, he was the director of weapons training at the U.S. Army Ordnance Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where he managed a staff of 100 instructors training nearly 3,000 people annually in the repair and maintenance of small arms, artillery and tank weapons systems. After his military retirement in 1979, Bruce worked in the private sector for 26 years, including 17 years at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., where he was the director of plant engineering and responsible for the daily operations of a 500-acre physical plant with a staff of 350 engineering and science professionals. Bruce had a lifelong love of learning. In addition to a BS in engineering from West Point, Bruce also earned an MS in mechanical engineering from New Mexico State University in 1964, and a juris doctor from the University of Baltimore in 1978.
In addition to his daughters and sons-in-law, Bruce is survived by his sister, Marta Smith of Albuquerque, N.M.; nine grandchildren: Catherine, Daniel and Mia Davis, Megan, Jessica and Victoria Widmer, Bryan Butler, and Rick and Brigid O'Shea. He was also blessed with two great-grandchildren, Bode Zambetti and Daisy D'Ambrosio. Bruce is also fondly remembered by lifelong friends throughout the U.S. and particularly on Long Island, N.Y,. in Venice Beach, Fla., and in Lewes and Rehoboth Beach. After a funeral Mass for Bruce, he and Dorothy will be interred together at West Point, N.Y., in late summer or early fall.
