William Whitaker

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Thomas Whitaker, 79, of Waco, a retired salesman and distributorship vice president who spent most of his career in Ohio, died Thursday night of complications from Alzheimer's disease.

For a brief period, he worked as a salesman for a Dallas-based ornamental ironworks company covering a large swath of the American Southwest, including Texas and Oklahoma, during the devastating drought of the 1950s.

He long loved the on-the-road life of a salesman, as much for the solitude inherent in traveling great distances by car as for the challenge of working with dealers and customers and the exhilaration of seeing new vistas.

Born Sept. 17, 1927, in McKeesport, Penn., the son of William and Dorothy Whitaker, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, with his family at an early age, helping mentor two younger brothers and graduating from Cleveland Heights High School.

He attended Ohio State University briefly, playing for the OSU football team and excelling in wrestling, but in 1946 left to serve in the Army. Trained in cryptography, he was assigned to analyze and crack foreign codes after World War II. Upon leaving the service, he began in earnest his long career as a salesman.

He married Shirley Geddes, of Cleveland, in 1951, and they raised two sons. Initially based in Dallas, he was scheduled to visit downtown Waco on May 11, 1953, the day the city was struck by a tornado that killed 114 people, injured nearly 600 and left much of the downtown in rubble. However, his car broke down in Dallas and he didn't make the trip. Later he was among the thousands donating blood for the injured.

More than five decades later, after a successful career in sales and management in Ohio, he moved to Waco with his wife to be near family. He died one day before the 54th anniversary of the Waco tornado.

Survivors include his wife, Shirley, of the home; his son and daughter-in-law, Bill and Ann Whitaker, of Waco; his brother and sister-in-law, James and Jane Whitaker, of Greeneville, Tenn.; his half-sister, Maris Whitaker, of Boulder, Colo.; his sister-in-law, Mitzie Whitaker, of Woodridge, Ill.; and a host of nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his son, Danny, in 1980, and his brother, Peter, in 2001.

A private memorial service is planned.

Donations may be made to Providence Hospice,
4830 Lakewood Drive, Suite 2, Waco, TX 76710 or the Heart of Texas Alzheimer's Association, 6605 Sanger Ave., Suite 1, Waco 76710.