George Cheeran Verghese

George Cheeran Verghese passed away peacefully at home in Newton, Massachusetts, on March 10, 2026, months into his 100th year, surrounded by family.

Born on November 2, 1926, in Mannar, Kerala State, India, he completed high school there before earning a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from University College in Trivandrum and a Master’s degree in Physics from Wilson College in Bombay. After teaching at Hislop College in Nagpur, he was recruited in 1951 to teach in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There he met Mariam Abraham, a fellow physics teacher from a nearby town in Kerala who had also studied in Trivandrum. They married a year later and taught together in Addis Ababa for two decades, spending summers in Kerala. Their first two sons, George Jr. (Reji) and Abraham, were born in Ethiopia, and their youngest son, Philip, was born in India. In his later years in Ethiopia, George taught at Haile Selassie University.

In 1965, George spent a year at the University of Aston in Birmingham, England, earning a Master’s degree in Nuclear Physics. He later had research stays at the University of Miami and the University of California, Irvine. In 1973, George and Mariam, along with Philip, emigrated from Ethiopia to the United States, first settling in New Jersey. George continued teaching at the State University of New York Maritime College, and he and Mariam became U.S. citizens. Their older sons joined them later. After retirement, they lived in Hawaii, Tennessee, and Florida before returning for a time to Trivandrum, then settling in Palo Alto and finally, in 2016, moving to Newton to live with Reji and his wife Ann Kailath. Mariam passed away a few months later. Over the following decade, George came to consider Newton his home.

George carried a gentle and unassuming manner throughout a measured and disciplined life, yet he showed boldness and courage in his major life decisions. He leaves precious memories with his sons and their families: Reji and Ann, Abraham and Cari, Philip and Nancy, and his grandchildren Steven, Jacob, Deia and Stephen, Amaya, Tristan and Madeleine, as well as with his large extended family and the many friends he and Mariam made and cherished across decades and continents.