The inventor of the Watten cot for cholera patients and an oral rehydration solution that is still used to treat tropical disease patients in the developing world, Ray Watten enjoyed a medical career that spanned three continents and four decades. Yet to those who knew him best, he will be remembered more vividly as a passionate potter, an adventurous cook, a world traveler and a connoisseur of music. "He really was a renaissance man," says his daughter Jan.
Raymond Henry Watten, '46, MD '49, died August 23 in Santa Rosa, Calif., from complications related to a fall. He was 91.
Born in Minnesota in 1922, the sixth of seven children of Norwegian immigrants, Watten headed west for his medical education. During the Korean War, in December 1950, he was given five days to pack for Japan, leaving his first wife, Jeanne Alderton, and their first two children in Palo Alto. Watten ran a ward for wounded soldiers who were arriving by the hundreds every day from Korea, suffering from frostbite and gangrene.
After the war he returned to the States and went to work in the Naval Hospital in Oakland (Oak Knoll) until his next posting in 1957. He then joined the Navy Medical Corps as a tropical medicine researcher in Africa and Asia, serving as commanding officer of units in Taiwan, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Egypt. He received a commendation from Egyptian president Anwar Sadat for identifying an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever.
An avid potter, Watten met his second wife, Judy Davis, while sharing kilns in Taiwan. After retiring from the Navy in 1982, Watten went on to direct the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory in Panama for five years before returning to California to pursue his many hobbies. In addition to making pottery, creating bonsai and collecting orchids, Watten was known for the lavish Chinese Lunar New Year banquet he prepared for his family every year. "It was just crazy how much he liked to cook," says Judy. "I guess it was just another kind of chemistry."
"One of my fondest memories of my father is from our time in Egypt. We all drove to the pyramids early one morning and climbed them at sunrise," recalls Jan. "He was always an explorer."
In addition to his wife of 37 years, Watten is survived by his children, Shelley Hanan, Barbara Johnstone, Christine, Jan and Barry; two stepdaughters, Laurie Milodragovich and Susan Davis; five grandchildren; and three step-grandchildren.
Dania Marinshaw, '14, is a senior studying communication and human biology.
