Wayne A. Gonnerman

Wayne and I met as postdocs at UNC-CH in the mid-1970s. We became good friends, which was easy with Wayne and his family. He got me interested in woodworking, and we took a most enjoyable woodworking course together at one of the local schools. He built a house from scratch there while at Chapel Hill. At the end of his stay in Chapel Hill, I helped him load the truck he had rented for the move to the Boston area. We worked late into the night loading the truck, and it seemed that most of the weight of the load was huge planks of black walnut. To a fanatic cabinet-maker like Wayne, this was more valuable than gold. After the move, I asked him how the trip up had gone. He told me that when he had the fully-loaded truck weighed, it was too heavy, so he had to rent a larger truck and move everything between trucks himself! Later, after I had moved to Baltimore and was planning to get married, I asked him to be my best man. He agreed, and did a sterling job. His toast to the new married couple was a beautiful piece, in which he wished for us a relationship in which, as we grow old together, we could look back and say that it was done welI. With his blessing in mind, 44 years later we can continue to say that it was done well.

Wayne was always calm and friendly. At MassBay I knew him over 15 years for his dedication to teaching and depth of knowledge. He was aware of everything going on and appreciated anyone who approached him. I was not aware that he also taught at Roxbury Community College or I would have tried to find him.
Alice