Sidney A. Wingate, Founder and Past President NEOESR 9/22/05

Sidney A. Wingate; engineer bred and showed sheepdogs
By Christina Pazzanese, Globe Correspondent
September 24, 2005

Sidney A. Wingate loved shaggy dogs -- the four-legged kind as well as those long, often convoluted stories that ended with a groan-inducing punch line.

For more than 30 years, Mr. Wingate enjoyed breeding and showing purebred old English sheepdogs, a hobby he shared with his late first wife, Margaret ''Peggy Lou" Miller. He often kept three sheepdogs at his home.

His passion for the animals led him to meet his current wife, Pauline (Davis) of Concord, a sheepdog enthusiast, said Paula Fiore of Wayland, his stepdaughter.

Mr. Wingate was one of the founding members of the New England Old English Sheepdog Rescue Corp. in Lincoln and served as its president in 1996. It was through this group that he met Pauline, who was a member.

''He had a very dry sense of humor and often had a joke of the week," said a cousin, Margaret ''Timmie" Fleming of Concord. ''He was a genius and a wonderful inventor."

Mr. Wingate died of a long illness Thursday at the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley in Littleton. He was 84.

Born into a military family in Denver, Mr. Wingate moved to Washington, D.C., as a young boy to live with his grandfather and attend school after his mother passed away. A genealogy buff, Mr. Wingate traced his family roots back to 17th-century settler Priscilla Alden.

Mr. Wingate then went to live with his father in the Philippines and graduated from high school at De La Salle College in Manila. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated in 1943 with a bachelor's degree and completed his master's degree in electrical engineering in 1946.

Electrical, mechanical, and optical engineering were Mr. Wingate's area of expertise.

He worked for Dynamics Research Corp. in Wilmington for the past 25 years. Fiore said Mr. Wingate tried to retire three times, but was asked to stay on by company officials.

''They had three retirement parties," said Fiore.

Mr. Wingate spent much of his career focused on radar development, aircraft flight control and testing, and developing motion-sensing products. During World War II, he spent time working on ''top secret" projects at MIT's Radiation Laboratory, said Fleming.

''He was a genius and a wonderful inventor," she said.

Mr. Wingate was eventually awarded 17 patents by the US Patent Office for his work.

Mr. Wingate was also an avid tennis fan and player. Well into his 70s, Mr. Wingate met up with a group of tennis buddies in Concord each week to play, said Fleming.

Besides his stepdaughter, cousin, and wife, he leaves two stepdaughters, Nancy Malott of Atlanta and Susan Everson of Monument, Colo.; two stepsons, Michael Davis of Billerica and Jeffrey Davis of Longmont, Colo.; 11 step-grandchildren; and six step-great-grandchildren

A stepson, Richard W. Davis of Boston, died last month. He also leaves a close family companion, Pamela Nichols of Acton, and three cousins. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday in the MacRae-Tunnicliffe Funeral Home in Concord.