Charles Wilson

On November 29 2011 Charlie Wilson left this planet just as he would have wished: in his Akron home of 46 years attended only by loving hands with very little suffering and quickly. He was 87 years old. Charlie is survived by four children: James W. Wilson (Pamela) of Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario Rebecca Wilson (Ted) of Hyattsville MD Meg Riley of Minneapolis MN and Robert Wilson (Robin) of Brecksville OH. He also had five grandchildren: Olivia (Jorge) Charles and Alec Wilson Niko Schultz and Jie Wronski-Riley and many beloved in-laws nieces nephews cousins other close relatives and legions of loving friends. Charlie (Charles Woodson Wilson III) was born in Columbus OH on November 20 1924. An only child he moved to South Charleston WV at an early age where he enjoyed owning various pets including a pony named Bobby and a dog named Rint. He loved playing with the kids in his Armor Park neighborhood and visiting his Missouri cousins. He graduated from Charleston High School in 1941 and entered the U of Michigan in 1941 to major in Engineering Physics. He entered the US Navy in July 1944 where he completed Navy Radio/Radar Technicians school. After his honorable discharge in 1946 Charlie completed his BS and MS in Engineering (Physics) at the U of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis writing a dissertation on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Relaxation Studies of Two Polymers (Polyethylene and Polytetrafluorethylene). He was a member of numerous honor societies and completed a post-doc with Professor Felix Bloch at Stanford University in 1952 when Dr. Bloch was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his co-discovery/co-invention of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Charlie worked as a research physicist at Texaco and Union Carbide before becoming a Professor of Physics and Polymer Science at the University of Akron where he served from 1965-1989 becoming Professor Emeritus in 1990. His entire career was involved in some way with NMR spectroscopy a field in which he began working in 1948 just two years after its invention. Charlie married the love of his life and soulmate Marty Ann (Martha) Moore in September 1948 the day she graduated from Ohio State University. He had known her since the age of 4 in South Charleston where their families were close friends. They were married for 53 years until she succumbed to ovarian cancer in 2002. Of Marty Ann Charlie said she was 'the great wonder of my life-my wife and lover-my dearest and closest friend my principal source of happiness support consolation and plain old fun my colleague and consultant in all matters the mother of my 4 children one of the wisest and smartest and most talented people I have ever known my partner and collaborator in most of the crazy things we have tried over the years one of the most generous hardworking effective and devoted people imaginable a person with many interests and vast curiosity a wonderful mother and a great cook-I don't understand how I ever got so lucky as to have won her to be my wife!' Charlie and Marty Ann were active in a variety of social action causes ranging from registering black voters in Texas in the 1950s to Scientists for Social Responsibility to anti-Vietnam War and racial justice work. He was a fierce advocate for full equality for women and often mentioned his grandmothers mother and mother-in-law as important role models. When moving from Charleston WV to Akron OH in 1965 Charlie and Marty sold their house to African-American friends thus integrating a previously all-white neighborhood. Charlie was also an active Unitarian Universalist and served in a large variety of leadership roles at the Kanawha Valley Unitarian Fellowship in Charleston and the UU Church of Akron attending many regional and national gatherings for over 50 years. In 1971 Charlie and Marty purchased an old farm near Coshocton Ohio and for the next several decades it became a gathering spot for far-flung family and friends to talk eat play games garden and preserve food and otherwise enjoy themselves. Charlie loved a long walk always accompanied by dogs and when he tapped his walking stick by the pond an entire school of fish would swim up to eat what he had brought to feed them that day. His hair wild the dogs barking at groundhogs his face stained with raspberries he picked as he walked he was never happier. No one asked to describe Charlie could complete one sentence without using the word 'funny.' He loved to laugh at life's small idiosyncratic moments and pioneered laughing at 'nothing' decades before Jerry Seinfeld (whose TV show Charlie loved). Charlie was a great storyteller and could laugh thousands of times about something that happened to him when he was in the Navy or engage a crowd with his tales of nicknames of his West Virginia schoolmates. Charlie said that writing did not come easily to him and he had to work hard at it yet the hundreds of people who clamored for his Christmas letters and email updates would have a hard time believing that they did not cause him as much joy to write as they created in the reader. Charlie was fiercely loyal to and protective of the people causes ideas articles of clothing restaurants radio stations drawers of unused pens and extension cords and opinions that he loved and wildly indifferent to popular opinion in determining what those were. He thought spoke acted and advocated for a world that was rational caring and just-always with a twinkle in his eye and a willingness to yell 'Bull****!' Committed to lifelong learning over time he used such words as agnostic atheist humanist and pantheist to describe his faith journey. After Marty Ann's death in 2002 Charlie underwent something of a personal transformation as he groped with creating life without her. Marty had always been the social organizer and kept him hopping. A cartoon he drew shows their tombstones side by side. Her epitaph reads 'Time's a wastin'!' while his says 'What is time?' Charlie dug deep through grief and loneliness and found support through church friends family and dogs to go on living. His grandchildren in particular benefitted from this newfound commitment to life and each one of them credits him with their own commitment to knowledge and to science. He began signing his emails 'Lucky Charlie' and said that when he couldn't sleep at night he would relive the happy times in his life over and over. Dorothy (aka 'Tootie) Jones an extraordinarily dedicated home health aide was steadily by his side for his final years making it possible for him to stay in his home until the very end of his life. Charlie was diagnosed with acute leukemia less than one week before his death. When told the diagnosis his response was 'What's so cute about it?' But Lucky Charlie left this world in the lucky way he always wanted to go. He was able to join most of his beloved family for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday Nov. 24 before returning to bed and to rest peacefully and painlessly until his death in the early morning of Tuesday Nov. 29. If you ever knew Charlie Wilson even just by reading his emails you will know that the world will be a less interesting place without him. A celebration of Lucky Charlie's life will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron on Thursday December 29 2011 at 4:00 pm. His body was cremated in accordance with his wishes as a member of the Akron-Canton Memorial Society. In lieu of flowers please send contributions to the Memorial Fund of the UU Church of Akron 3300 Morewood Road Akron Ohio 44333.