I wanted to be an architect and my twin brother wanted to be a car designer.  Unfortunately, except for Frank Lloyd Wright's school where you had to be formally invited, there were no architectural schools in Wisconsin.  Similarly, my brother had failed the test to get into General Motors Institute and the two art schools he had in mind were expensive and in Los Angeles and New York City.

 

We couldn't afford out-of-state tuition or a private school, so we both opted to go to a local teachers' college known for industrial arts and home economics, Stout State College---not your most rigorous of schools. Stout had a new program in industrial technology and we entered that.  We didn't know it at the time, but there was a college teacher shortage, and our school had hired ABDs (all but dissertation) to teach basic subjects while working on their dissertations.  Warren Zachary Watson, or “Mr. Watson,” as we knew him, was one of several instructors on campus who were young and added a certain vitality to the older, and more mundane, professors.

 

My brother and I were scheduled to a repeat of our algebra class in high school under Warren Watson's instruction.  Mr. Watson would come to class with an old sweater with a big hole in it, a white shirt that wasn't tucked in with lipstick on it, and on cold days, a knitted scarf that hung all the way to the floor on the long side.  He was tall, just over 6 feet, but hunched over slightly because of his curved back.  He had thick black hair, Buddy Holly black horn rimmed glasses, big lips, and a pock marked face.  The scarf would swing back and forth as he wrote rapidly on the chalkboard limping on his gimpy leg, giving it a sense of false great flourish.  Watson spoke fervently about science and mathematics, and lamented about how poorly our class knew algebra.  Still, the students liked him.

 

I was one of the few that did well in his class.  On one particular test, he asked the question: “Name two contemporary Southern authors.”  Of course, I wasn't prepared and couldn't even name one, not even Tennessee Williams.  When a student asked him why he would put such a question on a math test, Mr. Watson replied, “You have to know more than mathematics in this world.”

 

One of the reasons the students liked Watson so much, was that he was an active participator in student and faculty activities.  He could be seen driving around town in his olive drab $50 Packard that he took on many adventures and would, “Drive it is until it quit, and then buy another one.”  Warren could be seen kissing his beautiful young wife on campus with his young children underfoot.  He was a champion level ping-pong player and would take on basketball in faculty/student games with a large bandage on the knee of his skinny, curved leg.

 

Watson got together with other ABDs, like Mr. Richard Friedrich, our crazy English teacher, trying to instill some punctuation, spelling, grammar, and creativity into the unwashed masses, and established Undergraduate Fellows in our freshman year.  We were treated to uncredited evening seminars and lectures on science, history, the arts, literature, drama, and all the other fine areas of the college education we missed at a techie school.  My brother and I were fortunate to be chosen for this program and I'm forever grateful for having been a part of it for three years.

 

After returning to school, paralyzed from my surgery accident, Watson was gone and I heard that Friedrich had gone berserk (alcohol?).  Later, I visited Watson in his cubbyhole office filled with books on campus at the University of Wisconsin in Madison where he was a graduate assistant, still getting his dissertation together, and I was a graduate assistant in engineering. 

 

I lost track of Watson after that until finding his obituary doing research for my brother's autobiography (emphasize auto).  I did not know that Warren Watson had Native American roots.  While he did creative things like printing pi to the nth decimal on our little campus IBM 1620 computer and stringing it up and down the halls of Bowman Hall, I never knew of his technical ability, astronomical ability, love for the outdoors and adventurous sports, and his service to humanity.  I didn’t not know then, but I know now, thanks to the wonderful obituary written by a his widow and posted by his student, Matthew Baya  that I am presenting in its entirety below.  If you want to see the original and pictures of Warren Z. Watson, click on the link below.

 

Copyright 2012 © Ronald W.  Hull

 

11/14/12

 

The following was also published in the Yellow Springs, Ohio News.

 

Obituary: Warren Watson

by [Anne Bolen, posted by] Matthew Baya on 4/25/2009 in ANTIOCH, FLASHBACK, INTERESTING INFO

 

This is the obituary of one of my favorite professors & characters from my time at Antioch College. He was really an amazing man and I wish I had spent more time with him. Our cats, Goblin & Finnegan, are from a litter born in his house. I’ll try to write down some of my memories of him and stories he told in another post (or may make a video since there’s someone collecting videos about Warren). But for now, this is a small glimpse at a really amazing person

 

The legendary Dr. Warren Zachary Watson passed away peacefully at home with family and pets on April 13 after a series of complications following a fall. He was preceded in death by his wife of 35 years, Jamie, who passed away in 1992. He is survived by his wife of 15 years, Anne Bohlen.

 

Warren was born in South Sioux City, Neb., in 1935, the second of six children. His family moved frequently, finally settling in Wisconsin, and his early life was marred by poverty and abuse. At the age of 2 Warren contracted osteomyletis and his parents left him at the Hospital for Crippled and Destitute Children in Chicago, where he essentially lived until age 11. A misdiagnosis led to a series of surgeries that mangled his knee and leg, leaving him in a lifetime of daily pain. He also received hundreds of x-rays to his head in experiments to develop the flexible dental x-ray. However, University of Chicago tutors mitigated his suffering there by helping him to develop and focus his prodigious intelligence and energies on the life of the mind and he was encouraged to follow his interests.

 

As a teenager he built his own ham radio and it was a Canadian broadcast of saxophonist Charlie Parker that introduced him to one of his life-long passions, bebop jazz. Always a competitor, he won the statewide marksmanship competition and played a mean game of ping pong. He was a renowned card player, inevitably winning at sheepshead, cribbage, poker and bridge.

 

Warren attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he received a bachelors and masters in math and a Ph.D. in the history of sciences in 1969. While a student he met the first love of his life, Jamie Beth McKahan. They shared a love of jazz, intellectual pursuits, and were intensely involved in the tumult of the civil rights, student and anti-war movements. Warren and Jamie were on the frontlines of every major demonstration, including Chicago ’68, Pentagon ’69 to Moratorium ’70 and beyond. In 1957 they married and began their family,

 

While completing his dissertation, Warren taught at Stout State Teachers College in Menominee, Wis., and at Monteith College at Wayne State University in Detroit. He and his family arrived during the riots in the late ’60s. The city was destroyed to the edge of campus. The sounds of tanks and armored personnel carriers reverberating in the streets only strengthened their resolve to fight injustice. Warren was an exciting and highly regarded professor/activist who brought the world, including Frank Zappa, into his classroom. He once paid for the bus that carried his students to a march protesting the inauguration of Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., causing him to lose his teaching position and be labeled a world revolutionary.

 

He landed at Antioch College in 1969 and found his true love--teaching undergraduates at an institution where people who did and saw things differently were prized. He was an inspiring and beloved professor of physical science for 25 years. He taught math, computer science and history of exact science, was director of the Science Institute and for 20 years director of academic computing. He became a full professor in 1993. He hand-built a mainframe computer, bringing the college into the computer era, co-hosted a weekly jazz show, “Alternate Takes,” on WYSO, mentored and trained the student-staffed fire department, Maples, and became a trilobite aficionado and fossil hunter.

 

Warren lectured at Oxford University, traveled to Scotland, Majorca, Spain and Jamaica with his family, and participated in a faculty trip to Mexico and Cuba in 1994. In 1996 he presented the faculty lecture, “Finding life at Antioch.” That same year he delivered a farewell commencement address. After retirement he became an emeritus faculty and worked with Quantum Leap Innovations to develop virus interdiction firmware. He also added film noir to his teaching repertoire in Antioch’s communication and media arts department.

 

Warren was a true Renaissance man who wore many hats, both literally and figuratively. He was a member of the Cherokee Nation, a devoted husband and father, an accomplished fisherman, avid naturalist, camper and whitewater canoeist, running rivers throughout the U.S. Always a fan of high-speed driving, Warren was an accomplished mechanic and served on a Formula One racing team. He was also a well-known amateur agronomist whose crops made a splash nationally. He built canoes, refinished furniture, rebuilt motors, renovated his Victorian house, mastered the art of gourmet cooking and was a talented photographer.

 

Warren was a dedicated volunteer firefighter at Miami Township Fire and Rescue and was honored as firefighter of the year. He became the first certified paramedic in Greene County and was instrumental in making the emergency medical service a part of the department. He also served as the MTFR squad captain for many years. In that capacity, he drove the first ambulance into Xenia after the 1974 tornado, which was a life-changing experience.

 

He is also survived by his brother, Lloyd Watson; sister, Judy Parson; children, Wendy, Mark and Esme Watson; daughter-in-law, Cheryl Clesen; grandchildren, Zachary, Nicholas and Emily Watson; mother-in-law, Mary; brothers-in-law, Stephen, Patrick, David, Kevin, John, Thomas, Arthur and Rob; sisters-in-law, Monica, Beth, Maureen, Judith, Margaret, Joan and Julie; nieces and nephews, Chris, Andy, Ned, Emily, Joe, Thomas, Matthew, Ellen, Maeve, Claire, John, Paul and Madeline.

 

A celebration of Warren’s life will be held Saturday, May 23, [2009] in Yellow Springs. Contributions can be made to Community Mercy Hospice in Springfield, Ohio. Condolences can be sent atbohlen.gmail.com.