Howard Henry Wicke

Dr. Howard Henry Wicke, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Ohio University, died June 6, 2011 at Duke University Medical Center from complications of a stroke.

He is survived by his beloved wife of sixty-six years, Dawn Wicke; loving daughters Jennifer Wicke of Charlottesville, Virginia; Heather Wicke and husband Robert Hurley of Arlington, Virginia; Linda Wicke and husband Tom Seiter of Athens, Ohio; Dr. Susan Wicke, MD of Durham, North Carolina; and six adored grandchildren: Hope and Eryn Hurley; Max, Tasha and Zoe Seiter; and Meriel O’Connell.

Howard was born August 29, 1924, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Henry Wicke, an Illinois Central Railroad conductor, and Bertha Wicke, a ceramicist. A noted athlete and drummer, he and his wife Dawn met while attending Chicago's Austin High. His graduation yearbook expresses his future plans with the phrase: “Dreams, Drums, Dawn.”

Howard entered the University of Iowa on a football scholarship. His studies were interrupted by service in World War II as a pilot in the U.S. Naval Air Force. He married Dawn while on furlough on December 27, 1945, and returned to the University of Iowa, earning an M.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in mathematics.

His daughter Jennifer was born in Iowa City, Iowa, and Heather in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, where Howard worked as assistant professor at Bucknell. The family moved in 1954 to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Dr. Wicke would ultimately lead the Pure Mathematics Unit of Sandia National Laboratories. Daughters Linda and Susan were born in Albuquerque. During those years, Howard and Dawn designed and built a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired desert home.

Howard served as president of Albuquerque’s Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, was active in Democratic politics, and was a pilot in the Civil Air Patrol, participating in mountain rescue missions across the Southwest. A lover of music and the arts, he relished Native American art and culture of the Southwest. Self-taught and fluent in Russian, he attended several International Congresses of Mathematics in the Soviet Union, including a stint at Moscow University.

After twenty years at Sandia Labs, Howard refused reassignment to weapons development, and returned to academia as a topologist and set theorist. Dr. Wicke became a professor of mathematics at Ohio University from 1971 until retirement in 1997, publishing numerous papers in topology, and teaching courses from introductory to advanced mathematics.

Howard was a keen athlete, and a devotee of the Rec Center and bike path; he and Dawn were stalwarts of the Farmer’s Market, Dairy Barn, and often attended the Athens Unitarian fellowship. He was an avid billiards player, fascinated by the physics of pool. His beloved canine companions included Rocky, Liam, and Diamond.

Howard and Dawn lived in Durham for the past five years, but his heart remained elsewhere. In his final brief hospitalization before his death, he was asked by the admitting nurse where he was from. Howard firmly declared “Athens, Ohio.”

A celebration of Howard's life is planned for a later date at his Athens family home.