(Repetitions like the above are to facilitate searches on different versions of names.)
I was born 22 Jul 1940 in Evanston Hospital, Evanston, Illinois. My mother was Ann Hatfield (Owens), born 1914 in Evanston. Her father was Prof. James Taft Hatfield, German scholar at Northwestern University. Her mother was Ann Estelle Caraway of Tuscola Illinois. My mother was an Alpha Phi at Northwestern, class of 1936. My father was Llewellyn G. Owens (Llewellyn Owens) (Llew Owens), born 1911 in Columbus Ohio. His parents were Roy Owens and Violet Ferguson. He was a Sigma Nu at Northwestern, class of 1932. He was in the Navy during WW2, on the USS Oliver Mitchell DE417. He was with Equitable Life Insurance 1932-90. In 1949 he was cofounder (with cousin/brother Ronald Ferguson and Arnie Darsch) of Electronic Stethoscope Co., later Ronar, then Hamlin Inc. of Lake Mills, Wisconsin.
In 1945 we moved to 1737 E. Ridgewood Lane, Glen Oak Acres, Glenview IL. I attended Clyde Lyon School, Glenview Junior High School (on Waukegan Road where the police station is now), and Glenbrook High School, class of 1957. (We were the first freshman class. It is now called Glenbrook North High School.) I went to Sunshine Valley Camp in Deerfield, run by John Thompson. Summers 1953-56 I went to the Adventurers Camp for Boys on Fence Lake in Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin, a wonderful all-summer camp run by Capt. and Mrs. Lancelot Roden Claud Robinson. (A few years ago I visited Mrs. R in a retirement home in Chapel Hill NC.) I was ham radio W9OML 1955-60.
My sister Martha was born at the Chicago Maternity Center / Northwestern Memorial Hospital on Jan 23, 1950 (23 Jan 1950, 1/23/50) and adopted through The Cradle, an adoption agency in Evanston IL. Her mother (Mary?) was from Arkansas. We have had no success in our search for her birth mother.
Summer 1957 my first job was at Bell and Howell in Chicago (Lincolnwood), in the chemistry lab. (Made possible by vice president Bill Roberts, who was a neighbor in Glen Oak Acres. Chuck Percy was then president, at age 29!) I was an assistant (gofer) to Viron Jones, who was researching electrophotography, in conjunction with a small company in Rochester NY called Haloid Corporation. By 1958, Bell & Howell decided that research wasn't worthwhile, and left poor little Haloid to go it alone. In 1959 Haloid changed its name to ... Xerox! (We'll come back to them.) Summer 1958 I moved to the optical design department, where I met Tom Harris, who taught me to program the Royal McBee LGP-30 computer, and determined virtually the whole course of my life.
I went to Harvard University, class of 1961, and lived in Weld Hall and Leverett House. My degree was Physics, but my field quickly became computer programming. I programmed the Univac I and studied under Gerard Salton. I helped David Grossman and Laurent Hodges promote the career of fictitious student Stephen Potter (Harvard class of 1962, from Newton, Iowa). In 1962-63 Stephen, Henry Faulkner '63, and I climbed Mount Harvard in Colorado. We brought a 20' pole and sign, which was mounted at the top, making Mt. Harvard the second highest peak in the contiguous U.S. (See Denver Post 24 Nov 1963 and Harvard Magazine Jan 1981.)
I joined Tom Harris in 1961 at the Bell and Howell Research Center in Pasadena CA (formerly CEC, Consolodated Electronics Corporation). In 1963 he left to form Optical Research Associates. I went to Scientific Data Systems (SDS) in Santa Monica, headed by Max Palevsky. Buz Hartman (Harvard '63) and I wrote the FORTRAN IV compilers for the SDS 9300 and the SDS Sigma 7. We wrote "How to write software specifications", which won best paper at the 1967 FJCC (Fall Joint Computer Conference). We pioneered user-friendly diagnostics and listings, the likes of which we have seldom seen since. In 1969 I went full circle when SDS was purchased by ... Xerox! (It was said that Max Palevsky "sold a dead horse before it hit the ground"!) I left XDS in 1970.
I started folk dancing in 1962 at Pasadena Folk Dance Coop, then at Balkan Coop, UCLA, and Ruby Vuceta's Hollywood Playground dances. I started playing accordion in 1965, and performed with the Aman Folk Ensemble (led by Tony Shay and Leona Wood) 1966-76. From 1974-86 I had the NAMA Orchestra, a Balkan and Klezmer band that made four LP records. (See "Best of NAMA" CD.) In 1980 I studied Yiddish at UCLA with Janet Hadda.
I met Ruth Ann Mohr (Ruth A. Mohr, Ruth Mohr), in 1970 at a UCLA Extension Buddhism class. We were married in Avalon, on Catalina Island. Her great-grandfather Adam Mohr came from Ilgesheim Germany. She went to Manlius IL High School, Illinois Wesleyan University '69, and UCLA. She taught at Chapman College in Orange CA. We lived on Glendon Ave. in West Los Angeles for 13 years (4 doors from the Apple Pan restaurant). In 1986 we moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she got her Ph.D. in Public Health. I performed frequently with UMGASS (the University of Michigan Gilbert And Sullivan Society) 1986-96. Since 1988 I have led another Balkan/Klezmer band called The Ethnic Connection. I'm half of a Vaudeville singing duo called The Happiness Boys. And I run an "old time" DJ service called The Nostalgia DJ. Since 1984 I have done a lot of work on Owens Genealogy and published two editions of the book "Owens Family of Virginia and Kentucky".
We also have an unusual stone cottage on Goodell Rd., Eagle Harbor, Michigan 49950 (Upper Peninsula), built 2002-2005.
Picture of house, with '91 Geo, peek at Lake Superior:
Picture of our unusual garage (siding is Ecostar recycled rubber shingles plus black and red stones collected by us):
