Shunso Frank Watanabe was born on April 9th, 1927 in Reedley, California to Risaku and Teruyo Watanabe joining with siblings Hifumi Carol and Yoshiye Josie (Jo). He attended Reedley schools until the summer of 1942 when he was incarcerated at the Gila River Arizona Relocation Center for the Japanese and Japanese Americans.
At the age of 17, with the help of the FRIENDS, he was permitted to leave the center in 1944 to enroll at the University of Detroit College of Engineering where he was a 4.0 student until induction into the US Army a year later.
After military service, he resumed his college career receiving his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree, summa cum laude, and enjoyed a forty two year career as a research engineer in the aero-space, computer embedded machine tool and automotive industries. He was awarded more than one hundred patents.
He married Margaret A. Ueki in 1961 at which time he says is when his life really began. The two together designed their family home on an acre urban lot oriented with respect to schools and the community so that family life thrived.
After the two daughters grew up and became established in their careers in Silicon Valley, he and Margaret moved to a charming, gated community in the Cupertino foothills where he picked up the threads of his college elective in philosophy and wrote a legacy essay on spiritualism. He filled his final twilight years in quiet contemplation.
He requests no funeral or memorial and no disruption of the time and resources of the living.
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