My mother,
Joan Warnow-Blewett,
born Joan Carol Nelson on December 11, 1931, died
Tuesday May 30, 2006, in a hospice (the Bruns
House) in Alamo, California. She was
a brave woman with an incredible ability to believe in
everlasting love. She had a tremendous career, and
was rightfully proud of her professional accomplishments
at the American Institute of Physics where
she had a substantial career as
an archivist specializing
in 20th Century physics.
She was also proud
of her children and grandchildren.
She had been married three times: to our father, Morton Warnow
(divorced in 1964), then to physicist
John Paul Blewett (died 2000),
and finally to physics historian
Martin Klein.
She died, surrounded
by all her children, her son-in-law, and with her husband
holding her hand.
They had been
married for less than
a year.
We were lucky to be with her, all of us. I wish only that
she had lived longer, and that we had all gotten to know
her better.
A memorial for my mother was held on June 11, 2006, in
Carolina Meadows (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) where she
lived with Martin
Klein until her death.
My stepfather, Martin J. Klein.
Died March 28, 2009.
See this eloge
written by his friend and colleague, Anne Kox, which appears in the
journal Isis,
this memoir by Diana Kormos-Buchwald and
Jed Z. Buchwald, published in NAS Online, and
the
obituary in the New York Times.
They were married in Berkeley, California, with
his close friend since childhood,
Leon Lederman.
My father, Morton Warnow,
died on March 3, 2006.
Here is the obituary I wrote for the New York Times.
Morton Charles Warnow, 80, of Danbury Connecticut,
died Friday, March 3, 2006, of natural causes.
Morton served in World War II, and wrote a novel
("Forced March") based upon
his experiences as a Jewish POW.
He was an inventor, most recently of devices
to assist the deaf.
Morton was the son of Lucky Strike bandleader
Mark Warnow
and Sylvia Rappaport Warnow. He had been married
twice, and
had three children by his first marriage.
My family included some musicians. My grandfather,
Mark Warnow,
conducted the Lucky Strike Hit Parade on the radio, where he conducted
Frank Sinatra.
His brother,
Raymond Scott,
although also a conductor, was better known for his
unusual compositions.
My sister, Kimmen
My sister, Kimmen Sjolander, is
Professor Emerita of Bioengineering at UC Berkeley.
She now lives in Amsterdam.
For a photo of the two of us when we were pretty young, see
this.
My brother, Paul
Paul lives in Marin County with his partner
Lucia Coppola.
