March 27, 2004 William S. Watson

Sad news comes from Melbourne, Australia, that our classmate, William S. Watson, died on March 27, 2004 of the complications of lung cancer. Our classmate, Jon Cohen, a longtime friend, was able to go to Australia to see him about a month before he died.

Bill realized a lifelong dream of a career in International Banking and Business, living in Australia the last 30 years of his life. He and his family were granted Australian citizenship, although they retained their American citizenship as well. His wife, Clarisse ("Pinky"), who was from San Francisco, told me that after their business tour in Australia, they had been slated to return to the U.S. East Coast, but they had a family meeting and decided they wanted to remain in their beautiful home outside Melbourne. Bill and Pinky's children, John and Tori (her full name actually is Victoria, the name of the Australian state in which she was born), grew up in Australia, and Tori not long ago married an Australian farmer.

Bill was a fixture in the business life of Melbourne, very active in cultural affairs and American-Australian relations. Three hundred friends attended his funeral and the American consul-general in the city presented Pinky there with an American flag in Bill's honor.

Our classmate, Gordon Haw, who was Bill's roommate when they were both attending the Tuck school in Hanover, sent me this remembrance of his old friend, and here it is, lightly abridged:

"Bill was born of Scottish parents in Mount Vernon, N.Y., in lower Westchester County...He attended the Loomis School before Dartmouth. At Dartmouth, Bill was an international affairs major and graduated from Tuck with honors in accounting...He was also cox for the Varsity light weight crew. He was a member of Phi Tau fraternity. He graduated from the Army ROTC program. Aside from being a wonderful person in every way, Bill infected everyone around him with his biting sense of humor. Even today, many of us walk around with nicknames, not always complimentary, that Bill assigned to us. 'I only kid people I like,' he said.

"I met Bill in ROTC class our sophomore year...Early on, we planned a trip to Europe at the end of our senior year. We made the three-month trip along with Jim Sanford '59, Dave Hodson '60 and Butch Small '61, covering all of Europe for $1,000 apiece. Bill was an Army officer out of ROTC, getting infantry and intelligence training and serving in strategic planning for the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg.

"He began his banking career in 1963 in the International Department of Irving Trust Co. He started working the Middle East and then switched to Asia. He married Pinky Lawrence, a fellow worker...In between assignments to Australia and the Philippines, he and Pinky lived in Ramsey and Ridgewood, N.J. He and his family left the Philippines under threats to their lives. Bill explained that he must have done a good job uncovering fraud as he was replaced by five people from New York. Don't mess with a Tuck accounting major...Subsequently, Bill worked for Statestreet Bank in Boston and Bank of Boston in Australia. When he retired, he was working with Bank of New York in Melbourne.

"Bill was a lot more than an American expatriate in Australia...He was well known by everyone in banking and business circles. He had an excellent reputation as a hard-working professional banker, humorist and beer consumer, qualities much appreciated by his fellow Aussies." Bill made it back home to attend several Dartmouth reunions and sent his regrets for missing the last one.