Jerome Wattel

Jerome Vinson Wattel went home to our Lord on Saturday, November 24, 2012 after a short illness. Jerry was born in Rochester, New York in 1931. He graduated from high school at the Thomas Aquinas Instutute of Rochester in 1949. After a few months in the seminary he attended Fordham University and graduated in 1954. He served two years as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army including a posting in Alaska. Thanks to the G.I. Bill Jerry was able to spend a year in Paris to learn French and study at l'Institut des Sciences Politiques (Science Po). Returning from France Jerry took the Foreign Service Entrance Examination while working for City Bank. He passed, moved to Washington, DC, became a Foreign Service Officer and went to work at the State Department. In 1960 he volunteered to go and study Japanese at the F.S.I. language school in Tokyo. He left the States to immerse himself in Japanese culture. Having successfully graduated from the course, he was assigned as vice-consul to the commercial section of the American Consulate in Nagoya. His marriage to Danielle Dumont in 1964 was a memorable event. The religious ceremony at the Cathedral and the reception at the Consul's residence were attended by numerous friends, American and Japanese, as well as by all the dignitaries of the city, including the Mayor and the Governor of the Prefecture. The following year he was chosen as the first F.S.O. to participate in a new venture that would send a young F.S.O. to work for an American company in the United States. The company would then lend one of their employees to the State Department. Instead, at the end of his assignment in Nagoya he resigned from the State Department and joined the pharmaceutical company Pfizer as a public relations officer in Tokyo. After several years with Pfizer he was sent back to the States. A few months later Jerry was back in the Far East to open offices for the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton in Tokyo and Singapore. In 1973 the family returned to the States and settled in Darien, Connecticut. Jerry commuted to New York for many years eventually opening his own firm. During this stage of his life he earned an MBA from NYU. He retired and in 1998 moved to Blacksburg, Virginia where he assisted in his son-in-law's law office, served in his church, as an officer of the Knights of Columbus and tutored private students in English, Latin and Japanese. He is survived by his wife of 48 years; his brother David of Petaluma, California; two daughters, Helen-Marie Tracey (Papillon) of Darien, Connecticut and Elisabeth Swindell of Blacksburg, Virginia; and seven grandchildren.

A Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Thursday, November 29, 2012, at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Christiansburg, Virginia at 10 a.m. He will be buried at Memorial Gardens of the New River Valley on North Main Street in Blacksburg. A reception will follow at the Wattel's residence. In lieu of flowers a donation may be made to the Knights of Columbus Fr. Prinelli Seminarian Fund.