Lawrence Wolfson

Lawrence S. Wolfson, 97, of West Hartford
passed away Wednesday January 12, 2022. Born
July 19, 1924 in Brooklyn New York, he was the son
of the late Joseph and Bertha Wolfson. Lawrence
enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force in 1942 right out
of high school and served in World War II as a
radio operator and gunner and flew numerous
missions over Germany in a B-17, part of the
8th Air Force in the 493rd Bomb Group, 861st
Squadron. Lawrence did his officer and aviation
cadet training at St. Cloud State Teachers College
in Minnesota. Lawrence flew 26 bombing
missions in addition to four special flights. He
earned the Air Medal with two clusters, American
Campaign with battle stars for Europe, Africa,
and the Middle East, and a Victory Medal. In
January 2016, Lawrence was awarded the French
Legion of Honor medal for some of his bombing
runs towards the end of World War II that helped
liberate France. He lived in West Hartford for over
60 years. Lawrence went to school on the GI Bill,
becoming a mechanical engineer and then worked
for such companies as Gerber Scientific where he
was the vice president of engineering earning
numerous patents mostly for design work while
working in the Gerber Garment division. He also
worked for Combustion Engineering in Windsor
where he participated in the design and development
of nuclear submarine navel reactors. Prior to that
he worked at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California
designing advanced propulsion systems for
unmanned rockets. Lawrence was very handy
around the house with additions and renovations,
and for the last 20 years worked at his hobby of
building scaled working models of trains where he
would make each precision part in his basement
machine shop. Lawrence also restarted his childhood
hobby of building Balsa wood airplanes where he often
had to modify or redesign the plans to scale down. He
would often work tirelessly for almost 10 hours each
day completing over 20 planes. Lawrence is predeceased
by his beloved wife Marylin E. Wolfson. He is survived by
his daughter Susan Walker of Simsbury, his sons
Jerry Wolfson of Durham, NC and Richard Wolfson
and his wife Amie of Simsbury. Four grandchildren
Lisa, Mark, Aomsin and Aiden. Lawrence was
predeceased by his brother Robert Wolfson. The
family would like to extend a special thanks for all the
arrangements entrusted to the Weinstein’s Mortuary,
Hartford. A graveside ceremony along with full Military
honors will be held on Monday January 24, 2022 at 11 am
at Temple Sinai, 41 West Hartford Rd, Newington, CT with
Rabbi Jeffrey Bennett officiating. For further information,
directions, or to sign the guestbook for Lawrence, please
visit online at www.weinsteinmortury.com/funerals.cfm