Noel William "Bill" Dudley

Noel William Dudley Jr (Bill)

April 30, 1940

Perhaps you noticed Bill was living in his own world. It was in his DNA, but, also a learned behavior for his own mental stability.

Bill was not an ordinary type and, like many of us, he did not have a ‘normal’ childhood. One aspect was his extreme mental acuity.  Although it seems like a blessing, being able to read before going to school had some strange drawbacks. He was pushed into upper classes and skipped a grade twice. This put him at place where he was not as physically mature as his classmates. And, he still had mental abilities beyond his grade.

Part of the issues was living during World War II. For a time there was a broken family life. For some time my brother was brought up by Grandmother Dudley, while she was teaching in the Mojave Dessert. In school she would sternly admonish Bill with, “Don’t call me Grandma, I am Teacher here”.

When Father returned from Europe, he had trouble realizing how much we had grown. It took some time for him to reconcile Bill’s size and etc.. He also had some PTSD and that caused some episodes of verbal rage. For many years our Father had troubles keeping jobs and settling down. He got into many disputes because he was right. (It seemed to me like being right has its drawbacks.) As a result we moved a lot and Bill had many different schools. This made it difficult to make new friends.

 (In one Chicago grade school class two boys tried to push him out a third story window, because he would not let them copy from his test.)

Eventually this led up to him becoming a High School Freshman at the age of 12. During that year at Hyde Park High School in Chicago, IL, Bill needed to learn survival skills, including being part of a gang.

School life got better when we moved to St Ignatius, MT. However, When Dad got a teaching job in Amboy, CA. Bill was required to live in Needles, CA during the week. We spent summer in Redlands, CA. Then we moved to Culver City, CA and Bill finished High School, just after he turned 17.

This, in general, made Bill an outsider in his classes. Bill tried to go to the University of Redlands. He could not settle into College life and eventually went in to the Army Reserve for 6 Months active duty at Fort Ord, CA.After his army boot camp training, he became a driver for the Range Officer. There was an incident on the range where a recruit dropped a concussion grenade behind Bill. When it exploded, he landed against a building wall about 8 feet in the air. He awoke in an ambulance with a sheet over his face. They thought he was dead. 

Bill’s time in the Army was not very satisfying so he joined the US Navy.

After 2 years as a deck hand on freighters and refrigerated cargo ships, Bill decided to change his grade and he attended Radar School on Treasure Island. When he graduated he got an automatic promotion to Petty Officer Third class (E-4). He was assigned to Landing Ships out of Panama. This put him in harm’s way during the Cuba Missile crisis. His ship was loaded with Marines and equipment and sent to stand off Havana. They were expecting to land on the downtown beaches if hostilities erupted.

He received promotion to Radar Petty Officer Second Class (E-5). After his time in the US Navy he had more trouble being part of our life and, over time, retreated from his family and children. It seemed to grow worse as he got older. Books were more real to him than life.  He sought out work in isolated locations and disappeared for years at a time. It appeared to be a case of ‘out of sight out of mind’.  (Note: MENSA tested Bill and Father with an IQ of 165)

Bill worked on navigation and radar equipment on various jobs in the ‘missile Business’.  He spent time on the Apollo Tracking ship, US Redstone, and was part of the support team for the lunar landing.

Around 2006 Bill had a Stroke that left him in a new condition. He stopped smoking and drinking, however, he could no longer read. This was a great loss as he had speed reading abilities.  Reading was a great part of his life. He had hundreds of books that were then donated to the armed forces overseas, in Afghanistan and etc. I became in touch with him and helped him read and decipher his mail and documents.

His stroke did not affect his speech abilities. He did have trouble walking that got worse over the years. He also developed some dementia and memory to reality issues. I saw this when people asked him questions he would reply with a completely logical answer that was not based on his actual life. I called it filling in the blanks.

He had episodes where he would wake from a bad dream and then believe it was really happening. I would get calls from his care givers when he was thinking his medications were poisoned, or that he was being attacked by someone in his room. Two hours later he would seem to be ‘normal’.

Born: Apr 30, 1940 in Riverside, CA

Died: Oct 10, 2015 in Pasadena, CA

About: MENSA