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Thomas Morgan Watlington III, a third generation West
Pointer, was born 18 Feb 1932 at Ft. Davis, Colon, Panama. He began and ended
his education at West Point, as a first grader at the Post School and later as a
member of the Class of 1954. Tom attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver
Spring, MD, graduating in 1949. He loved basketball and, as he grew to 6’4,” was
a desirable teammate. He enjoyed recalling that he warmed the bench with Morgan
Wooten, who years later would be in the Basketball Hall of Fame as the most
successful high school coach ever. During those wartime years of gas rationing
Tom, despite all admonitions, hitchhiked to practices and pick-up-games. Such
was his enthusiasm. He also raised Bantam hens and roosters and sold his chicks
and eggs locally, showing an early love of all creatures that he later nurtured
in his children and grandchildren.
Tom attended Sullivan’s Preparatory School in Washington, DC, was
appointed from Maryland and entered West Point in 1950. There he battled the
Academic Department, meeting the challenge of two “turnout” exams at once and
passing them both (the only one of his era to do so). He played baseball and
soccer in his Plebe year and later was a basketball gym rat who organized the
first Goat-Engineer Basketball Game. The Howitzer extols him as a
gentleman who “put spirit and humor into life at West Point.” He often laughed
at the system and sometimes paid dearly for it, but when it came to soldiering,
Tom was attentive and dutiful. It delighted him that his sister Mary Clare and
her husband, Steve Edwards ’46, were stationed there while he was a cadet. West
Point was in his blood.
Following graduation and commissioning in the Infantry, Tom
married Gale Valentine in Chevy Chase, MD. He reported to Ft. Benning, GA, for the Basic Infantry Officers Course, Airborne and
Ranger training, which he took in stride. Assigned to Ft. Riley, KS, for
readiness training with the 10th Infantry Division prior to deployment to
Bamberg, Germany, with the 23rd Regiment, he served enthusiastically for the
next four years. Before the deployment in 1955, Thomas Morgan IV, was born at
Ft. Sill, OK, and second son William Kimball joined the family in Bamberg in
1957. In 1958 Tom returned to Ft. Benning with the 23rd. Despite his love for
troop duty, the routine of a peacetime Army palled. He resigned in the spring of
1960 and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal, a rare tribute to a departing
junior officer.
Tom joined the Baltimore investment banking firm of Alex Brown &
Sons. Before committing to a lifelong career as a stockbroker, he joined the
mutual fund company of Vance Sanders & Co., Inc., and moved his family to
Dallas, TX. Nine months as a wholesale broker convinced Tom that his real
calling was as a “Customers’ Man,” and he returned to Alex Brown, moving his
family to Gibson Island, MD. His daughter Beatrice Gale was born in nearby
Annapolis in 1962. Tom was very successful and became an expert in the mutual
fund field. In recognition, he was named to head that department, which he did
for years with distinction. He was an innovative manager, pioneering in the
then-new commodity known as Exchange Funds, which he brought to the firm and
which were a huge success. But as accomplishment in the business world
flourished, his marriage did not. He moved to the Annapolis area in 1969 and he
and Gale divorced in 1972. Tom struggled with the reality of a wounded family
but remained close to his children. His support and love for them never wavered
as he strove to remain the great father he always had been.
In 1976 Tom and Bonnie Nelson Jones were wed, second marriages
for both but a joyous one that would thrive for 31 years. Bonnie brought her own
Sarah and David Jones to a household that was vibrant with love and activity.
Tom and Bonnie travelled extensively and shared interests in a wide variety of
sports and hobbies, always attentive to their expanded family.
Professionally, Tom continued to excel. In 1975 he organized the
nationwide sales force that led to the largest underwriting ever managed outside
of New York City, $154 Million in shares of American General Bond Fund. He and
his team personally visited the major brokerage firms in most major U.S. cities
to insure the venture’s success, which was attributed to Tom’s ability to
inspire other brokers. His colleagues remember his unusual kindness to young
salesmen, many of whom he mentored with patience and sound counsel. He is
remembered above all for his unwavering integrity.
As he neared retirement Tom saw the investment banking world
changing. Despite his seniority at Alex Brown, he was recruited by the Kingstree
Group, an Executive Communications firm, but soon returned to his forte as
advisor to private and corporate pension funds. In 1993 he took his business to
Annapolis and subsequently hung out his shingle as TMW Advisors, Inc. In later
years, he scaled his business back to a point where it was exclusively pro bono,
finally retiring in 2002.
Tom stoically accepted the declining health that took its toll
and limited the fishing, tennis, travel, golf and other activities he relished,
but his ready wit and engaging sense of humor never diminished. Tom and Bonnie’s
extended family included eight grandchildren, and Tom never ceased being an
animated grandfather who loved the role. While ever self-effacing in the
presence of adults, he reveled in the attention of his adoring grandchildren and returned it joyfully. Tom and Bonnie enjoyed
many years at their summer cottage in Door County, WI, both a favorite gathering
place and quiet retreat.
Tom succumbed to complications following surgery on 17 Apr 2007
and was buried at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Silver Spring, MD, near his mother and beside his beloved son Bill, who
predeceased him. He will be remembered as a man who knew no vanity, but a robust
man of great integrity who lived his life honorably and fully.
Well done, Tom. Be thou at peace.
—His classmate, Chuck Wilson,
with Tom’s loving wife Bonnie |
