Roll Call Tribute

John George Kapsalis 

January 27, 1927 - June 8, 2023 

John Kapsalis made his last attempt to fool his loved ones and legion of fans into thinking he would live forever, signing off on an incredible 96-year long life that was as rich as it was varied. Told once again by his health care workers that “this was it,” his two daughters dutifully ran to his bedside with the same skepticism that only having played out this same scene too many times to count, could engender.

The world as our family would know it, would never be the same again when John was born to the late George and Eleni (Moumsi) Kapsalis on January 27, 1927, on the Greek island of Mytelini. Along with his two siblings, his family moved to Athens when John was 13, soon to face the Nazi occupation – a time that would profoundly affect his life, and the books and stories that he would one day write. He was most effected by the time his parents hid a young Jewish girl from the Nazi’s in their home, and the sometimes-harrowing events that followed during John’s teenage years.

John received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Athens College of Agriculture and went on to win a Fulbright Fellowship, leaving Athens for the US and gaining his PhD in Food Science at Texas A&M University. During his time in Texas, John was urged by mutual friends to begin a letter correspondence with a very nice Greek girl from Worcester Massachusetts, Athena Brunelis, who he would marry exactly one month after the two met in person. After receiving his second master’s degree at the University of Florida, John began his long career working for the US government and Military, primarily developing the process by which you freeze dry foods.

He received a prestigious two-year Fellowship at the Swedish Institute for Food Preservation Research in Goteborg, Sweden in the early 1960’s, eventually settling down to work the remainder of his career at the US Army Natick Laboratories in Natick, Massachusetts. There he developed MRE’s and LRP’S for the military, trying in vain to make these ready-to-eat meals as tasty as possible, once joking that he was the most hated man in the military. He then developed “space cubes” for the space program quipping “well they don’t go to space for the food!”

John was a true renaissance man and over achiever, having a true talent as a writer and a painter – skills which he spent much of his life developing. He wrote several books published both in Greek and English, focusing on the stories of his life in Athens during the Nazi occupation and his family history. He also loved to paint and in fact one of his paintings graced the lobby of Raytheon in Framingham for a time. Anyone who was a friend of John’s most likely has one of his paintings, as he loved to gift them to friends and family.

John is survived by his loving daughters Ellen (Rod) Johnson, Georgina (Jim) Galloway, his 4 beautiful granddaughters who he adored, Courtney, Taylor, Jesse and Nicole, and several nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his “bride” of 64 years, Athena.