Obituaries

W. Royce Wolf Jr.Computer Systems Engineer

W. Royce Wolf Jr., 57, a retired systems engineer with IBM, died of bladder cancer May 4 at his home in Falls Church after fighting the disease for five years.

Mr. Wolf, an Alexandria native who was raised in Annandale, graduated from W.T. Woodson High School. He attended the University of Virginia.

After a brief period with the former Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co., Mr. Wolf spent 30 years at IBM based in the Washington area. In the 1970s, he worked on typewriters at the State Department and later turned to copiers before getting into computers. At his retirement, he was specializing in the mainframe operating system VM.

After retiring, he worked part time as a systems engineer for Arlington County and the National Gallery of Art. He volunteered for the National Zoo as a docent at the Think Tank, in the Great Ape House and for Friends of the National Zoo. He also provided computer support for a study of memory involving orangutans at the zoo under contract with the State University of New York.

Mr. Wolf volunteered as soccer commissioner for Belvedere Elementary School in Falls Church, president of the Little River Soccer Club, announcer for Sleepy Hollow Bath and Racquet Club swim meets and president of the Barcroft Woods Citizens Association. He enjoyed downhill skiing, biking, rock climbing, letterboxing and the theater.

He was a member of St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Annandale.

His first marriage, to Abigail Wolf, ended in divorce. Two sons from his second marriage, Matthew Hudson Wolf and Charles Whitehead Wolf, died in 1980.

Survivors include his wife of 28 years, Leneice N. Wu; two children from his second marriage, Emily Anderson Wolf of Sunnyvale, Calif., and Paul Hudson Wolf of Burlington, Vt.; a brother, Marvin Wolf of Bud, W.Va.; and two sisters, Della Firestone of Sterling and Dori Shiflett of Annandale.

Catherine G. WelshEducation Department Official

Catherine Gilman Welsh, 89, who from 1966 to 1981 worked for what became the Education Department, died May 3 at Collington Episcopal Life Care in Mitchellville. She had suffered strokes after hip surgery last year.

At the Education Department, Mrs. Welsh was program manager with the Educational Resources Information Center, which collected research papers by academics and others and distributed them to libraries. She also edited the center's monthly journal, Resources in Education.

She was a Minneapolis native and a 1937 graduate of Radcliffe College, a school her great-uncle helped found. She was married the same year and accompanied her husband, an Episcopal priest, on his assignments in Ohio.