JONATHAN HASKELL YOUNG

Of Waltham, and formerly of Boston, Santa Fe, NM, St. Croix, VI and Cambridge, on September 26, 2026, following a brief illness, at age 79. His family was bedside.

Jonathan Slater was born in Cambridge to Morton L. Slater and Ruth Anne (Haskell) Slater, on October 24, 1946. The marriage of his father, a Harvard-trained mathematician, and his mother, whom Mort met while both worked at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, ended in divorce. In 1957, Ruth married Warren Young of St. Croix, then a prominent attorney and later a federal district court judge. Warren adopted Jonathan and his sister, Deborah, and blended his family at an ever-expanding island beach house filled with books, chamber music, conversation, gourmet meals, cocktails and laughter.

Having attended St. Mary Catholic School in St. Croix through sixth grade, Jonathan was a graduate of The Hill School (’63) and Princeton (A.B. ’69, Germanic Philology). While studying at Princeton, Jonathan and classmate Don Nolte founded the Student Typing Agency, and the response was so enthusiastic they soon added ten typists. While Don took the easy jobs, Jonathan insisted on doing the hard ones, deftly managing the idiosyncrasies of a half dozen languages as well as mathematical or scientific notation. Soon after he returned home from college a local court reporter in St. Croix encouraged him to pursue a career and gave him a brochure for the McMahon College of Court Reporting. So, Jonathan packed his suitcase for Houston, TX — a decision that changed his life.

Jonathan was a successful freelance court reporter in Boston for more than 40 years, associated with Doris Wong Associates and Fritz & Sheehan. In the early years he formed a lasting friendship with fellow reporter Ed Varallo. The two soon became known for producing pristine daily copy — the Holy Grail of court reporters. The highlight of his reporting career (ruminatively speaking) was covering rate-review hearings for the Department of Public Utilities; the low point was being flown into Islamabad for a job right after beer was declared verboten under the Prohibition (Enforcement of Hadd) Order.

One morning in 1984, in the elevator on his way to the Fritz & Sheehan office, Jonathan encountered Janis Tracy, a young woman on her way to interview with the owner, Bryan Fritz. Given his dapper demeanor, with overcoat, hat and signature bowtie, she asked, “Are you Bryan?” Jon replied, “No, but some people think I am.” Jonathan was the first person Jan met in Boston. For his part, Jonathan thought her quite tall (compared to his 5’6” stature, although she was in heels), and they started dating about two years later, while both worked at F&S. They would marry in 1995 at The Ark in Deer Isle (originally the Haskell family homestead, built and floated down from Newburyport in 1793) with his brother, Tim, serving as best man. During a hiatus in Jon and Jan’s relationship, Jo Frances Masciulli, Jon’s devoted companion of more than 40 years, stayed with Jon before Jan and Jon remarried in December 2025. Janis was the love of his life.

Despite his reputation for being an excellent reporter (winning the Massachusetts Speed Contest and placing third in the National Court Reporting Speed Contest), Jonathan did not suffer gladly haughty, inconsiderate or inarticulate lawyers, and it cost him jobs.

Seeking a change of scene from the tedium of courtrooms and conference rooms, Jonathan and Janis co-founded the Cambridge CART Center providing educational and conference captioning services to deaf students at several Boston universities, including Harvard and BU. It gave him the opportunity to reclaim the academic promise he had largely squandered as an undergraduate —and he was paid to boot! He was especially proud of several outstanding students who, with his captioning assistance with challenging science courses, graduated with high honors and went on to professional careers.

Jonathan had a lifelong love of learning and travel, read widely, loved old movies and had a photographic memory. Dickens was his favorite author, and he could quote W.C. Fields from memory as easily as recite long passages from the Aeneid (in Latin, naturally) and all of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” But all was not froth. A committed empiricist, Jon subscribed for many years to the Skeptical Inquirer, published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (operating today as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry).

In addition to his strong interest in the history of science, he was especially gifted in music and languages. A classically trained pianist, organist and harpsichordist, he relished playing chamber music with family — his mother Ruth, an accomplished amateur cellist, his Aunt Jean Loesch, a gifted, NEC-trained flautist, and his Uncle Bob Haskell, who was a triple threat on clarinet, saxophones and bass fiddle.

After his freshman year at Princeton, at age 18, he moved to London for a year, studying organ under Richard Latham and receiving the Associate of the Royal College of Music (Organ Performance) qualification in 1966. There he received the Geffrey Tankard Prize for Organ (Grade IV, the second tier), with an award of £12 — equivalent to roughly $400 today. One of his Tim’s most indelible memories later on was getting permission for Jon to play “Biggsy’s” Flentrop organ at the Busch Reisinger Museum at Harvard in a one-person recital. He leaves behind an impressively loud electronic classical organ in his Waltham garage that traveled from Boston to Maine, to New Mexico and back again.

In the 2000s Jon studied voice at the Longy School of Music, where he and Jan also presented piano recitals for four hands. Solo, he performed Book Two of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier in its entirety at a recital at the Harvard Musical Association in Boston. He sang bass-baritone in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with The Boston Philharmonic under Benjamin Zander. In June 2026, he and Jan completed a bucket-list item for any opera buff — flying first-class to Vienna to experience Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle.

Jonathan was fluent in German, French and Latin, had a working knowledge of Czech and Spanish, and a reading knowledge of Ancient Greek. His gift of language gave him the ability to travel lightly to points across the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, the Falkland Islands and Antarctica.

Jonathan became a licensed pilot at age 16, his parents driving him to the St. Croix airfield because he couldn’t drive himself legally. Using ample cash from his typing service at Princeton, he also completed 177 free-fall parachute jumps (once with Don Nolte and at least once with his father, Warren — infuriating his mother).

As a bon vivant, boulevardier (thanks to Louis Boston) and raconteur with perfect comic timing; as a gourmet cook known equally for his Chicken Marengo (adding obscene amounts of tarragon) and spaghetti Bolognese; and as a lover of highly intelligent, liberated women and Champagne, Jonathan was known as a habitué of Boston’s finer bars and eateries, including Locke-Ober, Durgin-Park, Parker’s Bar, Brasserie Jo and Maison Robert. Lucky was the person who stood next to him at Locke’s, the Marliave or Jake Wirth’s, as the evening was about to take an interesting turn, for Jonathan was a fascinating, well-spoken contradiction.

While he was by nature an academic, he was also a brilliant musician, a skydiver with 177 jumps, and an inveterate traveler gifted with a photographic memory. His professional life since college, however, was steeped in the precise recording of human and corporate grievances in minute detail. He was generous man, wrapped in a complicated package. Those who knew and loved Jonathan best understood why he always packed his own parachute — and never bothered hooking onto the static line.

Jonathan is survived by his loving wife Janis, his brothers Rodney (Edie), Gar, and Timothy (Priscilla); his devoted companion Jo Frances Masciulli; dear friends Don Nolte (Ursula) and Ed Varallo (Nancy); and many cousins, nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his parents and sisters Deborah Young and Lauren Larsen.

The family is grateful for the excellent care that Jonathan received at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Burial will be private. Celebration of Life to be announced at a future date.

Donations may be made in Jonathan’s name to a resource of knowledge on which he relied upon nearly every day, the Wikimedia Foundation.