Walter F. Ohnesorge Jr., age 83, of Oak Ridge, died Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013, at Parkwest Medical Center in Knoxville.

He was born Aug. 12, 1930, in Corder, Mo., the son of Walter F. Ohnesorge Sr. and Florence Mary Seuser Ohnesorge.

An avid naturalist, reader, hiker, fisherman, jazz enthusiast, and ham radio operator, Walt attended radio school after high school and worked for the railroad in Missouri as a telegrapher at a rural station and in surrounding states. After serving in the army during the Korean War, he graduated from William Jewell College and then studied health physics at Vanderbilt University, before beginning a 30-plus year career in that field at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

He married Mary E. “Pat” Maloy in 1961, and they raised their two daughters in the Karns Community outside Knoxville, until Pat’s death in 1988. [Read more…]