Obituary: Peter Morgan Watts
July 8, 1931 - January 23, 2022
Peter Morgan Watts / courtesy photo
It is with sadness in our hearts that the Watts/ Arnot/ Brown family announces the passing of Peter Morgan Watts, 90, of Waterbury Center on January 23, 2022.
Born July 8, 1931, in Utica, New York, as the eldest child of Francis and Hilda (Morgan) Watts, Peter was a world-traveler, lyric-writer, appreciator of good company, food and drink, lifelong-tinkerer, proud watcher of plays, games and races, and a supportive husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
Early Sunday morning, while resting comfortably with family by his side, he passed in the beautiful house that he built 50 years ago with his wife Barbara, where he had hosted innumerable significant family events.
Peter turned a talent for physics in high school into an Electrical Engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he was a proud member of Lambda Chi Alpha.
From RPI he joined the U.S. Air Force, researching radar at MIT’s Lincoln Labs. That led to civilian work monitoring Soviet missile tests in Trinidad and Turkey as base chief for General Electric.
After returning to Syracuse with GE, Peter met his future wife Barbara on a ski trip to Snow Ridge where she ran the Ski Hearth Lodge with her husband, Roger Brown.
While working in Maryland and Long Island, Peter’s affinity for skiing led him to buy land and build a house in Waterbury Center convenient to Stowe. Widowed upon Roger’s 1966 death, Barbara married Peter in 1968 and moved her 10-year-old daughter Galen and 15-year-old son Christopher to Peter’s Vermont home.
Peter was extensively involved in the community as executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party during the first election of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy and the governorship of Phil Hoff (with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship, joining him for biweekly luncheons with the ROMEOs), executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commision, chair of the Harwood Union School Board, volunteer Stowe host and treasurer of Seminary Corporation, saving a historic building that still serves Waterbury Center. He was the project engineer for UVM’s Regional Medical Program, and then went on to found Burlington Computer Systems, providing word processor sales and service. He meticulously served as building inspector for UVM and the City of Barre. Through it all he doted on Barbara and helped support her family that became his.
He and Barbara enjoyed traveling around the world for leisure, education and to visit their growing family. Frequent attendance at recitals, games and races became the norm as grandchildren (and then great-grandchildren) came into their lives. Many friends and teammates of the family were welcomed at their house on the end of Bittersweet Lane.
Predeceased by Barbara and his brother Bill, Peter is survived by his brother Michael, children Galen and Chris, and five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren (one bearing his name) who affectionately remember him as Perepere.
A memorial service is planned at his house on July 9. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice for their support in returning him home before his passing.
Arrangements by Perkins-Parker Funeral Home where friends may leave online messages.