CARLISLE - Ernie Huber, a gentle soul, died peacefully on September 14, 2024.

Born in Washington, DC on January 1, 1929, he had 95 years filled with love, friendship, fun, and interesting adventures and passions. He was the son of Oriana (Jenkins) Huber and Ernest E. Huber, Sr. Because his father was a doctor in the U.S. Public Health Service, he moved many times before high school. In 1944 his family moved from New Orleans to Medford, MA, and, except for three years in his twenties, he lived in Massachusetts for the rest of his life, on Partridge Lane in Carlisle for 60 years.

His passion for understanding how the world works started early. When he was 15, he rode his bike to Cambridge, stopped at the MIT Cyclotron, and was offered a job maintaining, repairing, and building electronics and serving as a "night operator." Tales of his experiences were recorded in 2020 for StoryCorps.

He and two buddies—who remained life-long friends—were members of the MIT Class of 1951. For most of their four years they commuted to school in their old Model A Ford. After graduating with a B.S. in physics followed by a master's degree, he went to work at National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Washington DC for three years. A highlight of his time at NIH was a visit by Niels Bohr. Bohr was with a group touring NIH that stopped at the metabolic chamber where Ernie was working. Bohr stayed behind and talked to Ernie for five minutes about his quirky idea for making small tetrahedral milk cartons.

Ernie's enjoyment of the outdoors began as a teenager and expanded during his time in DC. There was skiing at a new small rope tow area in West Virginia, hiking, biking, canoeing, rock climbing, and spelunking. After scaling the sheer face of Seneca Rock in West Virginia, he decided rock climbing was "too much work", and after several harrowing, grubby underground misadventures, he quit spelunking. During his time in DC, he also became an enthusiastic folk dancer.

In 1957 he returned to Massachusetts to join the MIT Lincoln Lab staff, staying until his retirement in the early '90s. He enjoyed his early years there doing basic research on materials, particularly on magnetic alloy thin films and working on and receiving his doctorate in metallurgy. In later years he worked on national defense, which he found less enjoyable.

He met Ellen Gillespie in 1960 and invited her to a folk dance in Central Square, Cambridge. She was not thrilled with the idea, but after that first time, she was hooked. They had many happy years of folk and contra dancing together. On September 15, 1962, they married and moved to a Watertown apartment. On the hottest day of the summer, in July 1964, a month after their daughter Anne was born, they moved to Carlisle. Their second daughter Sarah was born in 1966 and their son David in 1968.

In the '70s, Ernie took a beekeeping course at the lab while Anne was in beekeeping 4-H. He remained a passionate beekeeper for the rest of his life.  All three kids worked with him on the bees—Anne through high school and it was Anne he sent up a tree to retrieve their first swarm. David, fully decked out in bee gear, worked with Ernie to remove one from inside a worried homeowner's 100 °F attic. Sarah helped during high school and again in recent years.  In his last three years, he maintained a hive in the garage for easy access. The hive had a transparent exit tube attached to a hole in the garage wall, allowing scientific study of bee traffic patterns. Until a week before his death, he was giving Sarah advice about what needed to be done to keep the hive healthy.  He was very active in the Middlesex County Beekeepers Association and a happy mentor to new beekeepers. He traveled to international bee conferences (Apimondia) in Canada, South Africa, and Ireland. He was awed by the nature of bees, keeping copious notes on hive activities and treatments.

For over 50 years Ernie was an active member of the First Religious Society (FRS). In early 2001, Bill McKibben gave a sermon at the church, inspiring Ernie to years of environmental activism. Later that year, he, with FRS friend Bob Luoma and twenty clergy and laity blocked the entrance to the Department of Energy building in Washington, DC to demand no drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They were handcuffed and jailed. They were released through the night. At 4 a.m. Bob was the last to be freed. Ernie's life as an activist had begun.

In February of 2003, Ernie joined with other FRSers, other Carlislians, and hundreds of thousands more at an anti-war rally in New York City. Back home, he stood in Carlisle Center and on roadways in Littleton urging the country not to go to war with Iraq.

Ernie had many conversations with U.S. bee researchers around the U.S. about how to prevent the decline of bee colonies, which began around 2006. Convinced that neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides, were a significant part of the problem, he talked with state legislators about a ban. The Boston Globe published his letter urging the EPA to enforce stricter pesticide regulations.

Ernie is survived by Ellen, his wife of 62 years, their children Anne Huber (John Whitehead) of Davis, CA, Sarah Huber (Parke Wilde) of Arlington, MA, and David Huber (Rosie Cowell) of Boulder, CO, and his much-loved grandchildren William Whitehead, Isaac and Keziah Wilde, and Lila and Anna Huber. He was predeceased by his sister Marilyn DeCamp. He is also survived by many nieces and nephews. He loved the every-other-year large family gatherings on a special small lake in southern NH. In remembering Ernie at that lake, a nephew calls him an "Amazing, amazing soul, kind, ever curious/damn smart, yet not too proud to stick his head in the pie pan and go for it during the All Time Pie Eating Contest."

There will be a celebration of Ernie's life at the First Religious Society in Carlisle at 2 pm on Saturday, November 30, followed by a reception.

In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to the charity of one's choice or to Bees for Development, N.A., 1951 Glasco Turnpike, Woodstock, NY 12498.

Arrangements are entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord.