2A.  Walter John Gilbert was born in Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on Tuesday, April 26, 1938. Sandra Jean Borden was born in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on Monday, August 30, 1937. Her pedigree. They were married in Portage Methodist Church, Portage, Michigan, on Saturday, June 18, 1960. She took the name Sandra Jean Gilbert. He is the son of Truman Judson Gilbert and Dorothy Galbreath Gilbert. She is the daughter of Harry Eugene and Violet (Wheeler) Borden. They had two children:

His second marriage was to Janet Cushing Barnes Prochazka in the Court House, Upper Marlboro, Prince George's County, Maryland, on Friday, February 7, 1975. She did not change her name. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on Sunday, March 23, 1941. She is the daughter of LaVerne Almon and Eleanor Cushing (Wight) Barnes.

His third marriage was to Elizabeth Gertrude Linz in Rockland United Methodist Church, Ellicott City, Maryland, on Saturday, March 19, 1977. She took the name Betty Linz Gilbert. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on Tuesday, December 15, 1931. She is the daughter of Conrad Julius and Anna Mary (Telljohann) Linz.

Since this is the author's page, it will be written in the first person.

Walter and Betty Gilbert September, 2000

Having retired in 1998 gives me the opportunity and inclination to reflect a little on my life. (Don't worry, I'm not going to get maudlin or wildly philosophical here.) I've had a great life. I've certainly reaped the benefits of the collective ambitions and struggles of my many immigrant ancestors and the subsequent defenders of the United States.

Each phase of my life—infancy, childhood, education, parenting, career, and retirement—has been happy and successful with just enough grief to make me appreciate the good times. The transitions between them have been seamless and without anxiety.

Infancy: I was the first born of a family of five children and benefitted from the attendant attention and status. I even survived the era which required that visitors wear surgical masks to visit the baby.

Childhood: We lived in the suburbs of Kalamazoo, Michigan, on 2½ acres of farm land. My father, a construction superintendent, and grandfather, a cabinet maker, built a large workshop behind the house which had every tool and supply a child could imagine. I was taught to use them safely. My mother taught me arithmetic at age three: addition, subtraction, simple multiplication and division. At five I could do long division. I was also taught to cook, type, and use a sewing machine. We had apple and pear trees to climb, larger trees in which to build houses, and plenty of space to grow things. We had cats and dogs, sometimes a cow and pen of chickens, and whatever wild creatures we would bring home: a crow, an opossum, a raccoon, snakes, frogs, turtles, etc.

We had a piano and I was given (an expensive) clarinet in the fifth grade which I played in the school band. Then I took up the baritone horn, then some time on the viola, french horn, double bass, and trombone. My piano lessons in junior high school included a lot of music theory. I wrote and arranged my first piece for band in seventh grade. However, the only failing grade I ever received was in music; I didn't show up for a concert.

Walter John Gilbert High School

Education: In high school I took as much music, science, and mathematics as I could. I did not enjoy history, English, and similar classes; after the first semester, I never took a study hall. My social skills were rudimentary. There was never any doubt that I would go to Western Michigan College (now University) in Kalamazoo. I worked summers for my father in construction or for a housing development mowing unsold lots to pay my tuition and fees; I lived at home.

Realizing that the future of a music major was teaching school band at a mediocre salary, I opted for physics and math but spent most of my time in the Music Dept. I was selected as music director of the school student-written musical in my junior year, the first time a non-music major or non-senior had been chosen. I wrote most of the music and conducted the orchestra. In my senior year, I wrote the words and music for the school's new fight song and the music for the alma mater; they are still in use. I graduated Magna Cum Laude with all of the available honors in physics.

I met my first wife in the Music Dept.; she was a year ahead of me. My parents already knew her family since her father had been our milkman for years. We were married after I graduated. We moved to Maryland so I could attend graduate school in physics; they had a good graduate assistant program. I chose to bypass the Masters Degree and go directly for the Ph.D. Then our family started. Since this was the era when it was forbidden for a teacher to be pregnant, I got a job a the National Bureau of Standards and continued school part-time. I completed my classes but did not finish my research to complete my Ph.D.

My transition to breadwinning was transparent albeit the one and only time I ever had to look for a job. I sent resumés around the Washington, DC, area; the only response I received was from the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Science and Technology). I was a physicist going to work for a key government science agency. I worked in infrasonics (very low frequency sound). It was interesting and critical to the national defense (detecting underground nuclear testing) so I missed the Viet Nam war experience.

Kitty was a delightful baby; all anyone could ask. While she was not planned, John was. He was more of what one expects of a boy baby but, nonetheless, delightful. They were and always have been each other's best friend.

Career: During this time, I discovered computers and made a deliberate career change; one of the few major decisions I ever had to make. This was despite a 1968 omen from an experienced coworker that "all useful computer programs have already been written." My first real computer experience was on Pilot, a huge vacuum tube affair. I was totally caught up in the technology and worked long hours. This didn't help our young marriage and we divorced. I then valued the time I had with the children which I had been taking for granted.

Even though I was a scientist, I moved into management in the Administrative Computer Center of the University of Maryland. I also married Betty Linz; probably the best thing I have ever done. For seven years I learned how the other half (administrators) lived; it was a good lesson. Then I went to the academic side of the University where I was head of systems programming (and later, networking). During a 1988 reorganization, I opted to move to the service side; a very smart move for me.

Soon I was asked to take a million-dollar grant from AT&T and build "the world's greatest classroom." I did: the AT&T Teaching Theater. But with able coworkers, I realized that success in teaching with technology was helping the early-adopting faculty to succeed, not in the technology itself. Several classrooms and many successful faculty later, I was given an opportunity for early retirement. I took it. Financially, it was a "no-brainer".

Retirement: It's great.

Betty and I built a cabin about two hours away in West Virginia in 1979. It is the rare month that we have not spent time there. I did all of the electrical work, the plumbing, and even built some of the cabinets; it was satisfying. Take a tour. When we're not there, we encourage family and friends to use it.

Music: I have always maintained my interest in music, both performance and composition. In the Washington, D.C., area there was a great demand for double bass players for theater orchestras, pit bands, etc. I usually played several shows a year; all volunteer. However, my real love was composition. Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to have one's music played.

I started doing arrangements for some of the shows, mainly the annual Old Time Music Hall at the British Embassy. In 1987 I started playing for an annual satirical show, Hexagon. Soon I was writing and arranging several pieces each year. This has continued. It is a lot of work but it is great to have a my music performed to about 10,000 people.

Also, in about 1990, I bought a high-quality electric piano and attached it to my computer. Thus began a new phase of composition. I was frequently limited in composition by my shortcomings as a performer. Now the computer could play perfectly anything I wrote. I then learned how to specify the loudness and duration of every note of a composition so that the resulting performance would sound as I would play it if I could play it. In effect, I was converting my musical style to a series of numbers (loudness and duration); this realization was one of the most exciting moments of my life.

Genealogy: I never liked history and never really thought about who my ancestors were. However, in about 1972, I made several trips to the National Archives to search census films for my mother and her cousin. All of a sudden I was hooked. It was probably seeing the names of some early ancestors in those old records that did it.

I immediately started to keep track of the information on the computer, a Univac mainframe. It was a struggle because there was absolutely no appropriate software and keyboard access was clumsy. Once I reached a critical mass of information, I realized that I needed to write some software to format it in a readable way. Design and implementation of this took several years but the result, with a few simple changes, is what now generates my web pages.

Odds and ends:

• A Juicy Little Story.
• What my brother, Harry, did with the above: Cartoon version.

• This is an autobiography