Albert Vinicio Baez loved classical music and opera and encouraged his children to enjoy the arts.
Little did he know that the concerts he took his daughters to when they were young would inspire them to a stardom even greater than his own.
Mr. Baez was a scientist, a physics professor and a pacifist who refused to use his considerable expertise to advance the nuclear arms race during the Cold War.
But he was best known as the father of folk singers Joan Baez and the late Mimi Fariña.
A resident of Greenbrae for 25 years, he died Tuesday of what his family described as "natural causes" at the care home in San Mateo County where he had been living for the past three years. He was 94.
Mr. Baez co-invented the X-ray reflection microscope, which has been an indispensable tool for almost 60 years in the study of living cells and, more recently, in the study of galaxies.
Known by friends and family as "Professor Al," "Abo" or "Popsy," Mr. Baez was born in Puebla, Mexico. His father was a Methodist minister who moved the family north when his son was 2. Mr. Baez grew up in Brooklyn and flirted with the ministry before turning to math and physics.
He met Joan Chandos Bridge, the daughter of an Episcopalian priest, in high school. They later married and became Quakers. Joan Baez was born in 1941.
Mr. Baez received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Drew University in Madison, N.J., and a master's degree in physics from Syracuse University. The family then moved to California, where Mr. Baez earned a master's degree in mathematics and a doctorate in physics from Stanford University.
The invention in 1948 of the X-ray reflection microscope vaulted Mr. Baez into the upper echelon of American physicists. When the Cold War arrived in the 1950s, he had to choose between a career in education or a lucrative career developing weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Baez was a lifelong pacifist who chose a career in education and humanitarianism.
James Cavener, a onetime student and longtime friend, said Mr. Baez may have inspired Joan Baez's musical career with the purchase of a ukulele.
A resident of Greenbrae for 25 years, he died Tuesday of what his family described as "natural causes" at the care home in San Mateo County where he had been living for the past three years. He was 94.
Mr. Baez co-invented the X-ray reflection microscope, which has been an indispensable tool for almost 60 years in the study of living cells and, more recently, in the study of galaxies.
Known by friends and family as "Professor Al," "Abo" or "Popsy," Mr. Baez was born in Puebla, Mexico. His father was a Methodist minister who moved the family north when his son was 2. Mr. Baez grew up in Brooklyn and flirted with the ministry before turning to math and physics.
He met Joan Chandos Bridge, the daughter of an Episcopalian priest, in high school. They later married and became Quakers. Joan Baez was born in 1941.
Mr. Baez received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Drew University in Madison, N.J., and a master's degree in physics from Syracuse University. The family then moved to California, where Mr. Baez earned a master's degree in mathematics and a doctorate in physics from Stanford University.
The invention in 1948 of the X-ray reflection microscope vaulted Mr. Baez into the upper echelon of American physicists. When the Cold War arrived in the 1950s, he had to choose between a career in education or a lucrative career developing weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Baez was a lifelong pacifist who chose a career in education and humanitarianism.
James Cavener, a onetime student and longtime friend, said Mr. Baez may have inspired Joan Baez's musical career with the purchase of a ukulele.
"I remember when Joanie was about 12 and was a very unhappy girl," Cavener said. "She was half Mexican and that was a stigma and she didn't feel attractive. In her solitude, in her reclusiveness, she played the ukulele."
Mr. Baez began working for the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1951 and lived in Baghdad, where he taught at Baghdad University. He was director of science teaching for UNESCO in Paris from 1961 to 1967.
He opposed the Vietnam War and embraced the 1960s protest movement alongside his daughters, Cavener said.
"He was very much a pacifist, and his daughters were often jailed for speaking out in opposition to the war," Cavener said. "He was quietly very proud of them."
Over the years, he served on the faculties of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley and other universities.
He served as president of Vivamos Mejor, an organization founded in 1988 that provides education and community development projects for impoverished villages in Mexico. He endowed the Hispanic Engineer Albert Baez Award, which is given for Outstanding Technical Contribution to Humanity.
In 1967, he wrote "The New College Physics: A Spiral Approach," widely considered a leading American physics textbook. He co-authored "The Environment and Science and Technology Education," published in 1987, and the memoir "A Year in Baghdad" in 1988.
The Albert V. Baez Award for Technical Excellence and Service to Humanity was established in 1995 by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. Mr. Baez was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1998.
"He was a very, very gentle, very soft-spoken man who was intense but warm," Cavener said. "He was honorable. He led by example and, as a Quaker, he wasn't worried about anybody frying in hell."
In addition to Joan Baez of Woodside, he is survived by his wife, Joan Bridge Baez of Woodside; a daughter, Pauline Bryan of Carmel Valley; three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
A Quaker memorial is planned in May.
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A memorial service will be held May 24 for Albert Vinicio Baez, a physicist who co-invented the X-ray reflection microscope. He was the father of folk singers Joan Baez and the late Mimi Fariña.
The public service will be held at 4 p.m. in Memorial Church on the Stanford University campus, where Mr. Baez received his doctorate in 1950. He died March 20 at the age of 94 at a Redwood City care home.
Tom Hafkenschiel
In the summer of 1968, I took Physics for non-majors at Harvard summer school. My professor was Albert Baez, Joan and Mimi's dad. At the end of the summer, he invited the entire class to his home in Cambridge for a party at which Joan, Mimi, and their friend, Maria Muldaur, serenaded us; an evening I won't soon forget.
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