DAVID WATTS

WATTS--David E. David E. Watts died peacefully in his home in New York City on January 27, 2019 surrounded by his loving family. He is survived by his wife Edith, and his three children and their spouses: John (Annie Petsonk), Jamie (Marisa Kayyem), and Sarah Watts Beneke (Charles Beneke). Mr. Watts' grandchildren are Nicholas Watts, Charlotte and Lila Watts, and Caleb and Grace Beneke. He is also survived by his sister, Virginia Miller, and her children and grandchildren, a loving extended family that he has deeply cherished. Mr. Watts was born in 1921 in Fairfield, Iowa to Stanley Watts and Fannie Eide Watts. He graduated from The University of Iowa in 1940 and The University of Iowa Law School in 1942. During World War II he served in military intelligence at The Pentagon. He became a Columbia Law School fellow, and then taught law at the University of Iowa, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard. In 1952 he joined the Wall Street law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer and Wood, where he practiced corporate tax law for the remainder of his career, and maintained an office to which he went daily until the firm dissolved in 2012. Throughout his career he was active in the tax section of the New York Bar Association, where many of his associates were also good friends, and also at his alma mater, where he was a Lifetime Honorary Director of the Iowa Law School Foundation. He met his wife, Edie in Saltaire, Fire Island in the late 1950s, and continued to summer there, becoming well know for the spectacular tomatoes he grew in the wet and sandy soil, and for his leniency with night bike riders in his role as Saltaire Village Prosecutor. He joined the board of trustees for The Collegiate School in New York and served for the years 1975-1982 and again 2000-2004, and as with all of his affiliations, became a steadfast and enthusiastic member of the Collegiate community. His family joins all those who knew him in expressing an appreciation of his charm, wit, generosity, determination, and wisdom, all of which will be greatly missed.