William Ross Bozman

William Ross Bozman, 96, passed away Saturday, February 25, 2017. He was born in Zanesville, Ohio on December 21, 1920. Bill was the oldest of six siblings, growing up during a period of economic difficulty in this country. His childhood included a cross country trip in the family-owned Model T Ford, traveling from Ohio to Texas, Florida, Washington DC then back to Ohio. Bill attended small town schools, went fishing and swimming, and ice skating on wooden skates made by his grandfather from rasps!

Bill married Jeanne Elizabeth Warner in 1942. They had five children, David William, James Michael, Grace Ellen, Charles Andrew, and Robert Edward.

Taking advantage of the GI bill, Bill attended Marietta College in Ohio after WWII. He graduated magna cum laude in 1949 with majors in math, chemistry and physics with a minor in biology. He was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Following a summer work/study program in the Chemistry section of the Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC, Bill was offered the opportunity to return. And, after finishing his last year of college in the spring with a BS degree, Bill joined the Spectroscopy section where he made quartz lamps of Hg198, Tc and Pm. He learned how to use IBM punched card computers for calculations of the energy levels of these elements. Later he transferred to the Crystallography section where they wanted to publish two books of Crystal Data. The information was on punched cards. He wrote a computer program that would operate a typesetting machine at the Government Printing Office to produce the first production-line book by this method. In 1966, he received a Silver Medal from the Department of Commerce for this work.

Bill attended Georgetown University in the evenings and in 1961 received an MA degree in astrophysics. His thesis was on the spectrum of titanium. Bill studied for a doctorate and passed his orals, but didn’t continue.

Bill retired to Albuquerque, NM in 1977, where he worked part time for five years on Solar Energy at the Technology Application Center. He studied Japanese, poetry, pottery, and silversmithing. He enjoyed silversmithing, won a blue ribbon for a hollow silver bead necklace, and taught silversmithing for over ten years.

Bill moved to Camp Hill, PA in 2007. He enjoyed reading the most current political books, as well as Harry Potter.

Bill is survived by two sisters, Ada Southwood of PA and Mary Ola Churchwell of Montana; a brother, Vernon Esto Bozman of Texas; children Grace Ellen Siguenza and Robert Edward Bozman as well as numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren throughout the United States.