Obituary for Charles “Chuck” Schoff Watson
Charles (“Chuck”) Schoff Watson died peacefully on September 10, 2021, surrounded by his family. He was born on August 16, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois to Charles and Anna Mary Piatt. He is survived by his brother Donald Schoff Watson and was preceded in death by his brother Stanley Ford Watson. He is survived by his wife of fifty-one years, Betty, his daughters, Ann, Mary (Ernie), Katharine, & Elizabeth (Craig), and his grandchildren, Ben, Charles, Betsy, Zachary, and Lila.
Chuck grew up on the southside of Chicago, where he earned the nickname “Egghead” at Hirsch High School. He spent winters playing hockey on the frozen ponds with his boyhood friends, Greg, Lawrence, and Jim. During high school, he worked as a clerk in a grocery store and delivered beer on his bicycle for the local drug store. He spent summers with his friends at Lake Michigan, and the year Chuck graduated from high school he worked as a lifeguard on a Lake Michigan beach.
After high school, Chuck attended Lawrence College on a scholarship. He spent the summer after his freshman year at Lawrence with his father in North Webster, Indiana, where he worked in the ice house standing up three hundred pound blocks of ice. He spent four years in the U.S. Navy during the Korean war, repairing planes on aircraft carriers that sailed the world, including the U.S.S. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S.S. Lake Champlain, and the U.S.S. Midway.
He completed his undergraduate studies at Indiana University on the G.I. bill, and then earned his doctorate from Indiana University in experimental psychology under the mentorship of James Egan. While a graduate student, he conducted a study of the effects of noise on deafness with his lifelong friend and colleague James D. Miller. This research had a decades-long influence on industrial safety standards.
After graduate school, he became an assistant professor at the University of Texas in the Department of Psychology, and then worked as a senior research associate at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri, which was a leading center for research in hearing and deafness. Chuck assembled a group of capable graduate students, and he created one of the first laboratories in hearing to be fully computerized. At the same time, he served as an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Washington University in Saint Louis. Chuck then served as director of research at the Boys Town Institute in Omaha, Nebraska, where he created a research department that remains productive today.
In 1983, Chuck came to Indiana University to become Chair of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, where he collaborated with a number of outstanding colleagues, including Gary Kidd, with whom he worked closely for 36 years. Chuck made gender pay equity a priority in his department and he worked hard to achieve it. Prior to and after retirement, he created a company, Communications Disorders Technology, Inc. (CDT), with the help of colleagues, that developed assistive devices for people with communication disorders. His colleagues at CDT included Gary Kidd, Dan Maki, Jim Miller, Diane Kewley-Port, Roy Sillings, Judy Allensworth, Alex Crowley, and Deborah Burleson.
For Chuck, his work was his passion. He worked his entire life, until a few days before his death. He often told his children and grandchildren to find work they were passionate about, and that would make the world a better place. That is what Chuck did. He helped people with hearing loss and non-native speakers of English improve their communication skills. And with his colleagues at CDT, he developed the National Hearing Test, a test of hearing loss that people can take on the telephone, which is used widely, and has been adopted by the AARP. At the time of his death, he was working with his colleagues to create a version of the hearing test for smartphones.
Chuck did make this world a better place. He served on the board of Monroe County United Ministries, he volunteered at an overnight shelter, he testified in support of benefits for same-sex partners of university employees at the Indiana General Assembly, he worked to ensure fair treatment of faculty members through the American Association of University Professors, and he volunteered on political campaigns. A life lesson he imparted to his children is that you should do good things for their own sake, not to earn praise or admiration. Chuck was progressive in his politics and he was intensely concerned about the fate of our nation.
Chuck had many interests and hobbies. For many decades, beginning in childhood, he sang in Episcopal church choirs. He enjoyed playing the harmonica and guitar. He was a skillful woodworker and woodcarver. He also enjoyed and was skilled at many different athletic activities. He was an avid figure skater and an ice dancer. He flew airplanes, sailed boats, and drove convertibles. He had a series of good dogs who brought him great joy, including at the time of his death, Kali and Scooter.
His two greatest loves were his wife, Betty, and tennis, a pair that came together. He met Betty on the tennis court in St. Louis, and they played countless games of tennis together over the next five decades, including competing in the combined age of 140 national senior mixed doubles tennis tournament. He enjoyed watching Betty play immensely, and this remained one of his favorite pastimes into his last days.
Chuck was a devoted husband, parent, and grandparent. His pancakes, which he often made for his family on an ancient electric griddle, were phenomenal. When Chuck’s mother moved to Bloomington, Chuck was unfailingly attentive and helpful to her.
The family is grateful to I.U. Health and Bloomington Hospital for their skilled care and kindness for Chuck in the week that preceded his death.
A memorial service will be held when it is safe to gather, and it will be announced in The Herald-Times and on this obituary page. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Monroe County United Ministries.
Chuck grew up on the southside of Chicago, where he earned the nickname “Egghead” at Hirsch High School. He spent winters playing hockey on the frozen ponds with his boyhood friends, Greg, Lawrence, and Jim. During high school, he worked as a clerk in a grocery store and delivered beer on his bicycle for the local drug store. He spent summers with his friends at Lake Michigan, and the year Chuck graduated from high school he worked as a lifeguard on a Lake Michigan beach.
After high school, Chuck attended Lawrence College on a scholarship. He spent the summer after his freshman year at Lawrence with his father in North Webster, Indiana, where he worked in the ice house standing up three hundred pound blocks of ice. He spent four years in the U.S. Navy during the Korean war, repairing planes on aircraft carriers that sailed the world, including the U.S.S. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S.S. Lake Champlain, and the U.S.S. Midway.
He completed his undergraduate studies at Indiana University on the G.I. bill, and then earned his doctorate from Indiana University in experimental psychology under the mentorship of James Egan. While a graduate student, he conducted a study of the effects of noise on deafness with his lifelong friend and colleague James D. Miller. This research had a decades-long influence on industrial safety standards.
After graduate school, he became an assistant professor at the University of Texas in the Department of Psychology, and then worked as a senior research associate at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri, which was a leading center for research in hearing and deafness. Chuck assembled a group of capable graduate students, and he created one of the first laboratories in hearing to be fully computerized. At the same time, he served as an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Washington University in Saint Louis. Chuck then served as director of research at the Boys Town Institute in Omaha, Nebraska, where he created a research department that remains productive today.
In 1983, Chuck came to Indiana University to become Chair of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, where he collaborated with a number of outstanding colleagues, including Gary Kidd, with whom he worked closely for 36 years. Chuck made gender pay equity a priority in his department and he worked hard to achieve it. Prior to and after retirement, he created a company, Communications Disorders Technology, Inc. (CDT), with the help of colleagues, that developed assistive devices for people with communication disorders. His colleagues at CDT included Gary Kidd, Dan Maki, Jim Miller, Diane Kewley-Port, Roy Sillings, Judy Allensworth, Alex Crowley, and Deborah Burleson.
For Chuck, his work was his passion. He worked his entire life, until a few days before his death. He often told his children and grandchildren to find work they were passionate about, and that would make the world a better place. That is what Chuck did. He helped people with hearing loss and non-native speakers of English improve their communication skills. And with his colleagues at CDT, he developed the National Hearing Test, a test of hearing loss that people can take on the telephone, which is used widely, and has been adopted by the AARP. At the time of his death, he was working with his colleagues to create a version of the hearing test for smartphones.
Chuck did make this world a better place. He served on the board of Monroe County United Ministries, he volunteered at an overnight shelter, he testified in support of benefits for same-sex partners of university employees at the Indiana General Assembly, he worked to ensure fair treatment of faculty members through the American Association of University Professors, and he volunteered on political campaigns. A life lesson he imparted to his children is that you should do good things for their own sake, not to earn praise or admiration. Chuck was progressive in his politics and he was intensely concerned about the fate of our nation.
Chuck had many interests and hobbies. For many decades, beginning in childhood, he sang in Episcopal church choirs. He enjoyed playing the harmonica and guitar. He was a skillful woodworker and woodcarver. He also enjoyed and was skilled at many different athletic activities. He was an avid figure skater and an ice dancer. He flew airplanes, sailed boats, and drove convertibles. He had a series of good dogs who brought him great joy, including at the time of his death, Kali and Scooter.
His two greatest loves were his wife, Betty, and tennis, a pair that came together. He met Betty on the tennis court in St. Louis, and they played countless games of tennis together over the next five decades, including competing in the combined age of 140 national senior mixed doubles tennis tournament. He enjoyed watching Betty play immensely, and this remained one of his favorite pastimes into his last days.
Chuck was a devoted husband, parent, and grandparent. His pancakes, which he often made for his family on an ancient electric griddle, were phenomenal. When Chuck’s mother moved to Bloomington, Chuck was unfailingly attentive and helpful to her.
The family is grateful to I.U. Health and Bloomington Hospital for their skilled care and kindness for Chuck in the week that preceded his death.
A memorial service will be held when it is safe to gather, and it will be announced in The Herald-Times and on this obituary page. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Monroe County United Ministries.