Max Posner

My Grandpa, Maynard

In the spring of 2022, I received the highest compliment of my life. 

It was sometime after 9 pm, I was sitting in my Grandpa, Maynard Posner’s workshop. Maynard was sitting up in his home hospital bed, lucid, the cognitive impairments of Parkinson’s Disease having stepped out of his mind for the time being. I was enjoying a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Grandpa had already finished his customary two. With his characteristic direct and sincere eye contact, Grandpa let me know “I respect you very much.”

The man that said those words to me was a member of the rapidly disappearing Silent Generation, those born between the mid 1920’s and 1940’s. The son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant who fled religious persecution in what is now Ukraine, Maynard grew up in Queens, a Brooklyn Dodger fan. 

Maynard attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan with dreams of becoming an animator at Disney. He eventually chose a different path running the family plastic manufacturing business, where he engineered novel materials and designed products such as dining utensils with coroful handles that were stocked at Saks-34th Street.

Maynard signed up at age 20 for a 3-year enlistment with the New York National Guard, which stretched into more than a decade in uniform. He completed officer candidate school, after which he was immediately commissioned a second lieutenant. His service to his country did not cease when he left The National Guard. Maynard served for over 20 years until age 89 as an election officer with the Suffolk County Board of Elections. On election day, he would rise before the sun to work over 17 hours helping voters cast their ballots.

Maynard married a girl from the Bronx, became a father of two, and eventually a grandfather of 5. Whenever he could, he snapped photos of his greatest joy - his family. He was my best friend, a light, and an exemplary American. Maynard left us on June 20th, 2023.