Walter Rose

CHAMPAIGN – Walter Deane Rose perished at home under hospice care in Champaign on Jan. 19, 2009.

He was born Jan. 10, 1920, in Liberty, Ind., the third of four children born to Joseph Sims Rose Sr. and Dorothy Gray Rose.

He received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1944. He worked at major oil company laboratories, lectured for a year at the University of Texas at Austin, was editor of the Gulf Coast section of the Oil & Gas Journal, before joining the faculty of the University of Illinois College of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Engineering in 1955. He also taught courses on Zetetics with professor Tykociner, the first research professor of engineering at the University of Illinois.

Walter announced his resignation from the University on Nov. 22, 1967, to a group of 300 students at the Illini Union. This was in response to the expulsion of seven undergraduates who participated at a sit-in protesting the Dow Chemical Company. He referred to his act as a "moment of truth, my act of commitment." This was a reference to Thoreau "when men and women are unjustly imprisoned this is the time for just men and women also to be in prison." He followed "when the students of a great University are expelled it is time for members of a just faculty also to invite - indeed insist on their own expulsion." He stated "I have done my thing, and now you can do yours." He added that non-violence has not yet been disproven as the most effective mode of changing social injustice, and this was "the new name for the ancient law of suffering and self sacrifice."

Walter continued his teaching and consulting career around the world, in Turkey, Israel, France, East Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, China, Australia and Malaysia, and in the U.S. from 1968 through 2004. During this time he was also heavily involved in developing and leading petrophysical laboratories both for private industry as well as for government research agencies. He is listed in the American Men and Women of Science and Marquis Who's Who Indexes. He was inducted into the "Legion of Honor" by the Society of Petroleum Engineers, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alberta Petroleum Research Council. He authored hundreds of papers in peer reviewed journals, as well as a chapter on relative permeability in the Second Edition of the Petroleum Engineering Handbook. He holds several patents for laboratory test equipment. He enjoyed oil painting and writing poetry in his spare time.

Walter is survived by his German wife Edith, his sister Dolly, six children, 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his son, James Alexander, two brothers and two former wives. A y-DNA test established his oldest known ancestors as Robert and Dorothy Rose, one of the first group of settlers on Long Island in 1642. A mt-DNA test placed him within the J1 haplogroup, whose ancestral mother "Jasmine" is thought to have come out of the Caucasus in prehistory. More at www.digitalrunestone.com.

Contributions may be made to the University of Illinois Foundation, Rose Award for Teaching Excellence in the College of Engineering, 1305 West Green Street, MC-386 Urbana, IL 61801.