WILLIAM ALBERT LITLE

1934 - 2018

LITLE, William Albert William Albert Litle of Garden Grove, California, died peacefully at home on March 16, 2018. Born on November 25, 1934, and raised in Washington, Pennsylvania, where he grew up with his mother, the late Sara Allison Litle; father, the late William McClelland Litle; sister, Sara Jane Litle McCullough of Washington, Pennsylvania; brother, James Litle of Durham, North Carolina and many other cherished Washington County relatives. Mr. Litle was husband of Carol Litle of Garden Grove, California. He is also survived by his four children, Karen Litle of Atlanta, Georgia, Linda Godfrey and Robert Litle of Dover, Massachusetts and Ellen Litle of Sacramento, California.  He was a loving grandfather to Sara, Taylor and Ryan Godfrey; Greg, Jack, Mike, and Sam Litle; and Kayla and Grace Hussey.  Mr. Litle was awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, 1956, Duke University; Master of Science, 1957 and Doctor of Science, 1963, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following his graduate studies, he joined the M.I.T. faculty in 1963 in the School of Civil Engineering. He was considered a structural engineering expert. In 1977, Mr. Litle moved to Southern California where he served on the faculty in the School of Engineering at The University of California, Irvine and later at California State University at Fullerton. During this time, he parlayed his passion for collectible U.S. postage stamps into a second career. He was nationally recognized as "Master Grader" for Professional Stamp Experts, where he served as President and developed a standardized grading system to account for the wide range in quality among different examples of the same stamp. He was proud of how this system increased collectors' focus on the scarcity value of higher quality stamps. He created and served as editor of PSE's "Stamp Market Quarterly", a pricing guide for U.S. stamps. His pursuit of excellence was a gift to all, as he engaged his students, his family and his friends in life, and embraced learning, teaching, philately, collecting (bottles, cut glass, three-face glass, Radko ornaments, Yosemite paintings, artwork and carriage clocks), golf, travel, fishing, the arts, Christmas holidays, Disneyland, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Duke basketball. He loved to learn, read, explore, and watch sports. His generosity with his family included amazing cruise vacations, deep sea fishing trips, epic Colorado white water rafting expeditions, Grand Canyon exploration, iconic Cape Cod vacations and striped bass fishing, and several Hawaiian vacations. His passion for life, sense of humor and intellectual curiosity helped to pave the way for his grandchildren and their lives ahead. A private service will be held in his memory.

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