Born in Browndale, Pa., Dr. Monasky earned a bachelor's in biology at the University of Scranton and graduated from what is now the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine in 1960.
Dr. Monasky became a Navy dental officer after graduation, married Army Nurse Corps Capt. Barbara Frahm, and pursued a military career until he retired with the rank of commander in 1980.
"He grew up in a small town; I think it was the sense of travel" that drew him to the Navy life, said his daughter, herself a Navy commander and dental officer.
He had begun his career at the Norfolk (Va.) Naval Shipyard and was transferred to Pearl Harbor, where he was given the first of four career shipboard assignments.
The Navy sent him to the prosthodontics program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he earned a master's degree in 1970 in that speciality, which his daughter said involves such skills as making dentures and implants.
Before his Chapel Hill studies, the Navy had assigned him to shipyards in Boston and Charleston, S.C. After Chapel Hill he served in Newport, R.I., Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va..
At Temple, Dr. Monasky began as an assistant professor in the prosthodontics department in 1980 and retired as a full professor in 1999. He was a member of the American Dental Association, the American College of Prosthodontists, and the Pennsylvania Prosthodontics Association. He was a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus.
Besides his daughter, Dr. Monasky is survived by son George A., daughters Johanna Kolonsky and Julie Hess, and three grandchildren. His wife died in 2009.
A viewing was set from 10 a.m. Friday, June 8, at St. Alphonsus Church, 33 Conwell Dr., Ambler, before an 11 a.m. Funeral Mass there, with burial in St. John's Cemetery, Forest City, Pa.
Contact Walter F. Naedele at 215-854-5607 or wnaedele@phillynews.com.
