FRANCIS C. GAUDET

Francis Clement Gaudet, a Douglas resident since 1981, passed away at his home on Wednesday, November 14, 2012. He was born December 11, 1921, in Norwich, CT. His parents, John and Mary MacAulay Gaudet, predeceased him, as did his brother, Harold, and sisters, Margaret Boyle and Eleanor Gaudet. In a March 1998 Daily Dispatch interview, he expressed his outlook on life as “I’m the luckiest guy in town…there’s nothing money will buy that I want or need…” He was lucky enough to marry two lovely ladies. His first wife, the former Karen Margarete Drewsen, and their son, Paul Gerard Gaudet, predeceased him in 1996. Their son, Pierre Francis Gaudet, predeceased him in 2005. He is survived by his wife, Josefina V. Gaudet. Surviving daughters are Anne (Serabjit Malhotra) and granddaughter, Lauren of Brooklyn, NY and Margaret (Brian Battersby) and grandchildren, Michael and Tara of Tuckahoe, NY. He is also survived by daughter-in-law Karla and granddaughter Michelleanne (Shelley), D.O., of Elgin, SC. His brother, James (Patricia) of Westborough, MA, also survives him. He graduated from Bulkeley School, New London, CT, the Electric Boat Company Apprentice School, Groton, CT as a machinist and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY as a mechanical engineer. He joined the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) as a design engineer in 1951 and retired in 1977 as a senior planning manager. He was mechanical design manager of the first commercially available transistorized computer, the IBM 608, and of all IBM transistorized computers. As a technology planning manager, he forecast IBM’s electronic component requirements and their effect on its manufacturing resources. He directed IBM’s initial studies of large scale integrated circuitry and robotic applications. He had articles published in the Reader’s Digest, Arizona Highways and the Mensa and American Ex-POW Bulletins and local publications The Voice in the Desert and the former Bisbee News. He was a Life Member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Disabled American Veterans, American Ex-Prisoners of War and the Rainbow (42nd Infantry) Division Association, other World War Two military awards included a Combat Infantry Badge, Presidential Unit Citation and a Bronze Star Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster. He was a parishioner of the Immaculate Conception Church, and a member of Douglas Elks Lodge #955 and the IBM Quarter Century Club. He leaves life as he lived it; quietly and unobtrusively. A Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church with Father Gilbert Malu officiating. Interment of the cremains will be in the Gaudet family plot in St. Mary’s Cemetery, New London, CT as the convenience of the family.