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Ralph 'Don' Jessee (September 13th, 1921 - April 3rd, 2016) was born in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. During the Great Depression his family moved to Kentucky. After two years at Lincoln Memorial University, he earned his engineering degree at University of Kentucky. He was hired by Westinghouse and after a stint in the army he returned to the Aviation Division at Lima, Ohio. He enjoyed his work designing control and protective devices and methods for aircraft electric power systems. He was granted 30 U.S. patents during his 49 year career. Meanwhile he took a wife and reared a family of four children. Late in life he moved to Louisiana to live with his daughter Catherine and her family. He enrolled in a life writing class at Catherine's insistence. Don wrote prodigiously for 10 years in spite of worsening macular degeneration, and has left a surprising legacy of stories, poems and letters. They are archived here for your perusal and enjoyment.
As a happy 24-year-old I was thinking of finding a bride and starting a family. I had a job and though I had no money, the job would provide. World War II was over; I no longer had to fear the draft as an obstacle. Plenty available young women shared my ambitions, not directed at me, but they were out there. It was the...(click to continue reading)
Estimated Reading Time: 4.2 minutes
Charlie Yohe seemed to be an easy-going sort of fellow who enjoyed life, including his job as an electrical engineer. He was about my age, or a bit younger, and roughly my size and better looking, according to some folks. Charlie and I both worked in the engineering department at Westinghouse. Although we had been acqu...(click to continue reading)
Estimated Reading Time: 4.5 minutes
Jayna Strunk Visits Don 2
David and Don talking about Pine Mountain, from 'Solitary Hike'
Catherine and Don Talking About Isaac and Ivo (Part 2)
David and Don talking about Uncle Billy's ears
The June night was clear with a bright starry sky above. We sat around a little campfire that was not for the heat but for the effect. We always thought a campout was incomplete without a fire to gaze into. It had been a...(click to continue reading)
Estimated Reading Time: 8.8 minutes
We’d had an especially pleasant trip back home from Zion, Illinois where we’d spent a week for Dorothy’s monthly series of treatments for her cancer. After a week at the hospital it was a pleasure to go home. The four-ho...(click to continue reading)
Estimated Reading Time: 4.1 minutes
Granddaddy Wells set his first grandson on his knee and sang to him when he was but a little tyke, not yet in school. I was the little tyke. I have no recollection of what song he sang. He may have made it up on the spot...(click to continue reading)
Estimated Reading Time: 5.3 minutes
Ralph Donald Jessee, 94, joined our Lord and Savior on April 3, 2016. He was taken down by old age and cancer.
Ralph Donald was born to I.W. “Ike” and Ivo Jessee on September 13, 1921, in Appalachia, Virginia. His grandparents were subsistence farmers, his father was a clerk with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and his mother was a schoolteacher. In the third grade his family moved with the Railroad to Pineville, Kentucky, where he played football with, and graduated from, Pineville High School. He attended Lincoln Memorial University, in Harrogate, Tennessee, for two years and then transferred to the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He graduated in 1943 with a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering.
Setting aside a job offer from the Manhattan Project because the recruiters wouldn’t tell him what he would be doing, he accepted a position from Westinghouse Electric Corporation, which took him to what later became the Aero Space Division in Lima, Ohio. However, he was soon drafted into the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Shortly after boot camp he had surgery on his thyroid, was honorably discharged, and returned to his job in Lima. Young Engineer Jessee thrived in his work environment. He enjoyed the camaraderie and the technical challenges and quickly became a top engineer in the critical work of building innovative and reliable electrical systems for the nation’s military aircraft.
Although he led innovation on a wide variety of projects, one core and persistent focus of his career was improving systems that used converters to make alternating electric current (AC) from direct current (DC) sources by switching the output terminal to the source in a unique way. His job was to develop elegant control schemes to prevent the degradation of the output quality. A tale he wrote after he retired describes the help he received from a master. After several days of trying to understand why a model of one of his elegant control scheme designs was not working as planned, he arrived home with the intention of relaxing and putting the problem out of mind. He sat back and listened to a sublime piano concerto by Mozart and was carried away. When he came back to earth, he found himself at work on the problem, but the tension was gone. He knew what caused the anomaly and modified the design.
During his career, Ralph Donald’s work garnered thirty patents. At least four times he received an award for submitting the most meritorious patent disclosure of the year. Along with colleagues he received the George Westinghouse Signature Award of Excellence. Of all the awards received, he regarded the Engineering Achievement Award the most significant. That award recognized the importance and ingenuity of his invention of a system still called the "Jessee Circuit"; that controls the operation of an electric power converter that converted direct current to alternating current for use in airplanes. In its basic form the converter output voltage was subject to distortion by load changes and by variations in switching devices. Ralph Donald’s task was to take into account these corrupting variations and eliminate their influence. The ”Jessee Circuit” did the job. He loved his work, and his very productive career with Westinghouse and its successor firms lasted fifty-three years.
A young local lass named Mary Elizabeth Werff, a clerk, caught the eye of Ralph Donald after he reported for work in Lima. He married her in 1947, initially found very modest housing (which they referred to as a shack), and soon started a family that quickly grew to four offspring: David Lawrence, Stephen Ross, Catherine Ann, and Susanna Marie. He provided well for, and guided well, his family, supporting their involvement in good schools, Market Street Presbyterian Church, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, the wider family, adventurous annual camping vacations, and eventually the colleges of their choice. He and Mary formed a strong team of wonderful parents, he with stern advice and wise counsel and she with a good ear, good advice, and compassion. That loving partnership came to an untimely end when Mary died of cancer in 1973. Ralph Donald stayed actively and lovingly involved with his children and his grandchildren, but the support of Mary was sorely missed.
Finding that his college sweetheart, Mardelle Jones, had been divorced, he convinced her to consider marriage. They tied a knot that came untied ten years later. A few years later he found himself in an improbable match with Dorothy Phillips, at the time 60 years old, which turned into a delightful marriage. Dorothy, never having been married, was quick to adopt Ralph Donald’s brood and they in turn were happy to welcome her into the family. She became the de facto communications and reunions director for the family, a role that was much appreciated. Ralph Donald was heartbroken when he lost her to cancer in 2005.
His macular degeneration worsened and he found it very difficult to live on his own. His daughter Catherine and her husband Ghulam Sarwar invited him to live with them in Lafayette, Louisiana. He found new friends and found a writing teacher/encourager, Kim Graham, with the Life Writing Classes sponsored by the University of Louisiana and Lafayette General Hospital, who encouraged and guided the production of 200 stories based on experience in his life. The collection of these stories portrays in rich detail a rich life. They will be available on the web at RalphDonaldJessee.com.
Ralph Donald was preceded in death by his parents; his sister Margaret Givens; his brother James Marion Jessee; his wives Mary Elizabeth Jessee, Mardelle Jessee, and Dorothy Jessee; and his daughter Susanna Jessee Murbach. He is survived by his daughter Catherine Jessee Sarwar; his sons David Lawrence Jessee and Stephen Ross Jessee; his grandchildren Alica Jessee, Benjamin Jessee, Matthew Jessee, Beau Jessee, Shawn Sarwar, Rachel Setliff, Emily Duncan, Andre Jessee, Ursula Jessee; his grandchildren Aidan Jessee, Keegin Jessee, Logan Jessee, Ava Setliffe, Jane Setliffe, Isaac Duncan, and Adalyn Duncan; niece Jayna Strunk; and nephews Richard Givens and Mike Jessee.
A memorial service will be held at Grace Presbyterian Church in Lafayette on Saturday, April 23, 2016 at 2:00. In lieu of flowers, friends and family might consider a contribution in his name to one of the following organizations:
The ashes of Ralph Donald will be interred next his wife Dorothy at Memorial Gardens in Lima, Ohio at a later date.
