A gallant knight, righting wrongs, searching for truth

by David Powell, Benjamin S. Brown Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus

Ted Williams was a man of many enthusiasms, a man who acted on them, and a man who took others along with him.

Ted liked people, perhaps especially young people. He wanted them to accomplish everything they were capable of — and more. He was willing to go to any lengths to make his point and could stand his ground in the face of tears or rage. Once he suffered through several straight weeks of poorly prepared general chemistry lab notebooks. Finally, at the beginning of one lab, Ted expressed his opinion in strong terms and sent the stack of 40 notebooks thundering into a metal wastebasket. In stricken silence the students, on their knees, retrieved their notebooks. The students’ work improved dramatically.

Ted loved chemistry and enjoyed informing others about it. He would often appear suddenly in my classroom (closed doors were no impediment), asking what I was doing and why. Students looked forward to these obviously unscripted interruptions, as Ted and I tried hard to put each other on the spot.

Ted was deeply interested in issues affecting black people. He was convinced that we would make real progress when black students were as excited about becoming good scientists as they were about becoming good point guards. He loved to attack stereotypes. Twenty-five years ago, in an era when not many black people were in positions of authority, Wooster had a summer science camp. One year many of the participants were from the inner city; the majority were black. Ted wandered into one of my sessions with the group, asked a series of questions about what we were doing, and left. As the students left, they discussed who Ted might be. They were thinking a custodian but thought he knew a surprising amount of chemistry. Ted came to the next session, leaning on a mop as he asked questions. After pointed queries from students, we finally revealed his real day job.

He was enthusiastic about his family. The sense of family was broad, too. Tom Krivos ’72 and Carl Robson ’62 came to see Ted in intensive care, where only family could visit. The nurse asked, “Friends or family?” Without hesitation Tom said, “Family.” They got to stay.

Although Ted was very much in the public eye, he had an essential mystery, too — questions that were never answered. For example, why did he work so hard to make Mosemobiles 2 and 3 as close as possible to the original car (given to him by the son of basketball coach E. M. “Mose”Hole ’18)? Much to Ted’s delight, my wife rode for thirty miles in Mosemobile 2 before realizing that it now had two more doors.

After Ted broke his hip, I asked Yvonne how his spirits were. She thought and said, “He is being gallant.” Her use of the word intrigued me. Ted, in his way, was a gallant knight, trying to right wrongs and searching for the truth. He was an unusual knight, clad not in armor but in an all-weather sport coat, riding not on a trusty steed but in a gold Buick, and jousting not with a lance but with words. He went out not to slay dragons but intolerance. Even when the battle would be long and hard, he entered into it with joy.

I will remember Ted this way — charging enthusiastically into the latest fray.