Carl E. Sideman, 84

July 19, 2024

Carl E. Sideman of Lititz, a nature enthusiast and patent-winning chemist, passed away peacefully on Friday, July 19, 2024 at UPMC Lititz Hospital. He was 84.

Born in Lowell, Mass., he was the son of the late Lillian (nee McCauley) and Edwin Sideman. Carl, the eldest of four siblings, helped out at the family’s fresh fruit market in town as a boy. When he wasn’t at the market, he spent time in nature, keenly observing plants and animals. Often he’d hike and fish for hours and make discoveries in the surrounding woods near his childhood home. These adventures laid the groundwork for a lifelong love of science, the outdoors and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of flora and fauna.

He sometimes came home with harmless snakes to tease his mother and sisters and once returned with an abandoned baby fox, much to his mother’s chagrin. But after she saw how well he cared for the animal, she allowed Carl to make it a family pet. Over time, it grew stronger. When it got larger and began to nibble at his things, Carl knew it was time to return his fox to the wild and, with sadness, he freed it.

Carl worked as a chemist and was credited as the inventor for several U.S. patents related to the quality of all types of flooring, including factors like color saturation, print embossing and durability. His first invention outlined a way for a heat transfer print to be readily stripped off, leaving a “brilliant wear-resistant print” onto a substrate, he wrote.

Prior to his retirement, Carl was a chemist for Armstrong World Industries in Lancaster.

During his free time, Carl returned to his childhood love of nature. He was an avid outdoorsman who was passionate about hunting, fishing, and gardening, particularly vegetables and orchids. One of his favorite pastimes was visiting Middle Creek to watch the geese.

Sitting outside on the deck of his Lititz home with a view of the expansive backyard–one of his preferred spots–he enjoyed taking in the surrounding nature, sharing facts about a random bird flying overhead or a particular species of beetle on the tip of a flower petal. Beau, his loyal brittany spaniel, was usually nearby, keeping Carl in view.

One winter day, when his oldest child was still in grade school she asked him how maple syrup was made. Without skipping a beat, he walked her down to a maple tree at the edge of their property and explained everything he knew about the process, called capillary action. But that wasn’t enough. He went to the trouble of “tapping” the maple tree and hanging metal buckets on it to collect the tree sap, in order to make the syrup from scratch.

Having access to fresh produce, as he did as a child, was important to him throughout his life. When his family lived in the rural Lunenburg Mass. for several years, he planted and maintained a nearly 1-acre fruit and vegetable garden. The garden was a labor of love and featured several varieties of his favorites. On hot summer days, there were 5 types of juicy melons to choose from and three varieties of corn-on-the-cob; one for each of his three children, he would say.

Carl is survived by his children: Alysha G. Sideman, wife of Paul Davidson, of Arlington, VA; Marci S. Miller of Lancaster; and Noah E. Sideman, husband of Natalia, of Ephrata, PA. He was a proud grandfather to Wesley Garner, Violet Garner, and Jonah Sideman, with another grandchild on the way. He is also survived by his sister, Lorna Sideman, and his beloved dog, Beau.

A private graveside service will be held on Monday, July 29, 2024, at 11:45am at Sharon Memorial Park in Sharon, Massachusetts.