Ward Low

  http://www.paweekly.com/PAW/morgue/community_pulse/2000_Jul_12.OBITS12

Publication Date: Wednesday Jul 12, 2000

Deaths

Ward Call Low

Ward Call Low, 78, a more than 30-year resident of Palo Alto, died June 30 after a bout with cancer. With his wife of 15 years, Helen Low, who died last September, he had owned and operated Lytton Properties, Inc. in Palo Alto and served as broker. He was born in Afton, Wyo. and then following World War II taught physics at Boston University, where he was also assistant director of the Upper Atmosphere Research Laboratory. In that capacity, he was a frequent visitor to the famed White Sands Proving Grounds near Alamogordo, N.M., while supervising the making of dozens of technical precision instruments that were carried by the Air Force's pioneering V-2 rockets to record upper atmospheric phenomena. During the first few years following the U.S. victory in World War II, he was on the cutting edge of the physics that enabled and accelerated development of what would become the U.S. space program. During the late 1950s, while he worked in physics and system science at various laboratories in the Boston area, he spent a couple of years on loan to ARPA, now DARPA, at the Pentagon. In 1969, the Low family arrived in Palo Alto, where he worked as senior scientist at the R&D Laboratory for Smith Corona. He was a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and gave his all to a variety of assignments in both Boston and Palo Alto. He is survived by two brothers, James Low of Farmington, Utah and Richard Low of South Gate; two sons, David Low of Hudson, Mass. and James Low of Provo, Utah; 12 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Services have been held.