Boston, MA –
Alexander Alfred Bernhard died at the age of 89 on June 15th in Boston where he had lived for over 73 years. Alex was born at the Touro Infirmary in New Orleans in 1936 to John Helenus Bernhard and Dora Solosko. He led a peripatetic life including attending high school in Mexico City before attending MIT, graduating in 1957. Shortly after that he enlisted as an officer in the US Navy, serving initially in Atlantic Fleet, Service Squadron before spending the majority of his time in the Pacific Fleet, Submarine Force. He left the Navy as a Lieutenant Commander and it was during his service that he discovered the law. Years later he said, “I don’t believe in much but I believe in the law.” He went to Harvard Law School, graduating in 1964 and after clerking on the 9th circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, found his professional and spiritual home at Hale & Dorr, now Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr (WilmerHale) in Boston where he practiced corporate law for 32 years. He had a profound sense of community and was active with many nonprofit organizations, including the Mass Eye and Ear which he ultimately chaired and of which he was extremely protective.
Alex loved his family, above all his wife of 39 years Myra Mayman who brought out the best in what was already a great man. Passionate about squash, tennis, hiking and biking, anything to do with sailing and trains, the outdoors, good wine and especially the law, Alex was a renaissance man who could lecture anyone who would listen, often when captive in a car or chair lift, from the Battle of Jutland to the murals in the Boston Public Library and bricklaying techniques on Beacon Hill in Boston. He somehow found time to join Myra as Associate Master of Cabot House from 1986 to 1988 and learned to play air guitar with Harvard undergraduates, usually after dinner and late at night in addition to rowing on the House crew. His very active retirement spanning 20 plus years included extensive travel in Central America and Europe. In 2004 he and Myra founded The Friends of the Northern Rail Trail, a nonprofit that successfully converted the abandoned Boston and Maine train line from Concord, NH to Lebanon, NH into a year-round walking and biking trail and now focuses on improving, maintaining, and promoting this outdoor space. His favorite spot was a 190 acre former dairy farm he and Myra acquired in East Andover NH in 1990, but true to form later bought a place on Boston Harbor where he could watch the comings and goings of various Navy and US Coast Guard ships. He is survived by his wife Myra, his three sons – John Bernhard of Lexington MA, Jason Bernhard of New York, and Ted Bernhard of Boston MA – and seven grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers donations may be sent to Friends of the Northern Rail Trail (https://www.fnrt.org)
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