Donald B. Watson

Don was born in 1938 in Camden, New Jersey. As a child, he played stickball in an abandoned lot with the other kids in the neighborhood. He also liked to sit under the family home’s front steps during thunderstorms, listening to the rain and the wind.

Don got his bachelor’s degree from Ursinus College, where he met his wife, Coral Lee Koffke, of Reading, Pennsylvania. After college, the two married, and Don completed an M.B.A. at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Don always liked making and building things, and so he pursued a career in manufacturing, working for Johnson & Johnson, Corning Glass, the Topps Company, Luden’s, and finally Hershey Chocolate Company after Hershey bought Luden’s. For the final fifteen years of his career he served as the plant manager at the Luden’s factory, in Reading, which at the time made York Peppermint Patties, Fifth Avenue Bars, and cough drops. Don was devoted to Luden’s and its employees. He was particularly thrilled when Luden’s gained the York line, and he was always eager to advocate for colleagues and to celebrate their accomplishments.

Along the way, Don and Coral Lee raised three sons, Brian, Douglas, and David. Family came first, always. Don and Coral Lee made time for sporting events, concerts, day trips, vacations, and just being together as a family. Don’s sons fondly recall their one-on-one days with Dad during the summer when they went on an adventure of their choosing.

At home, Don was handy and loved do-it-yourself projects. Over the years, he built a garage and a deck, finished two basements, renovated a guest cottage, restored an old car, undertook makeshift plumbing projects, and used duct tape, cardboard, tennis balls, and pool noodles in new and creative ways. The only project that Don didn’t enjoy was mowing the lawn.

Don had a lifelong passion for boating and being near the water. When he was young, he would watch boats go by on the Delaware River, longing to get onto the water himself. As an adult, he realized his dream and became an avid boater and sailor. First and foremost, Don viewed being on the water as the perfect way to spend time with his family. The family’s first boat was an old runabout named Scooter. Don and Coral Lee then took up sailing and shared it with their sons. The family’s first sailboat, a nineteen-footer called Anemone, split its time between Blue Marsh Lake, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and the upper reaches of Chesapeake Bay, where, during the windless summer months, Don acquired his nautical nickname, Doldrums Don. Don and Coral Lee eventually graduated to a beautiful, classic thirty-one-footer, the blue-hulled sloop Aurora, of late-sixties vintage. The couple retired first to Rock Hall, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and later to Bennington, Vermont, keeping Aurora at a marina on Lake Champlain, in Willsboro, New York.

After Coral Lee died, in 2008, of cancer, Don relocated permanently to Willsboro, where he amazed his family by becoming something of a social butterfly. At seventy, he also returned to downhill skiing, a sport that he and Coral Lee had enjoyed together during their youth. At the marina in Willsboro, Don was eager to host cocktail hours and dinners and became known for his signature dish of spaghetti and meatballs. He also loved to while away the days at his slip at the end of Dock 3, tinkering on Aurora and socializing with friends.

Throughout his life, Don put a premium on kindness to friends and even strangers. If you had a problem, he wanted to solve it. And he routinely went to great lengths to avoid inconveniencing others.

Don will be remembered as a loving husband, father, uncle, and grandfather, who was completely devoted to his family. Given free time, his first impulse was always to bring his family together—probably somewhere close to water—to sail, explore, and connect. He also cherished get-togethers with his extended family, including his sister, Jean, and his twin brother, Bob, and their families, over the holidays and at the Jersey Shore during the summer. Late in life, Don was always excited to visit his grandkids. Don’s sons will always remember afternoons on Blue Marsh Lake and family trips to Ocean City, New Jersey, to the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake, and to the coast of Maine, as well as the wondrous week when the family rented a houseboat in the Thousand Islands, in Canada—the start of the family’s countless days together on the water.

In addition to his sons, Don is survived by his daughters-in-law, Rebecca, Michelle, and Erin, his six grandkids, Zach, Gabe, Ben, Sam, Rose, and Leo, and his brother, Bob.

Per the wishes of the deceased, there will be no funeral or memorial service.

If you would like to make a charitable contribution in Don’s memory, may we suggest Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating, Champlain Area Trails, or your local library.