Remembering Bill Fairweather
Wellington (Bill) Boles Fairweather Jr, 81 a long-time resident of Newton MA, passed away December 9, 2024, at Mount Saint Rita Health Centre, Cumberland, RI.
Born April 4,1943 he was the son of the late Wellington B. Fairweather Sr. and the late Mary Fairweather.
He was the loving husband of, and will be missed by, his wife Anita (McKie) Lorraine of Newton.
In addition to his wife of 27 years, he will be cherished and missed by his son Carl W. Fairweather and wife Melanie Fairweather of Attleboro, his stepchildren Craig Morton, Wilford (Bill) Morton, Dana Morton, and his grandchildren Madison J. Fairweather and Tyler W. Fairweather, and Brendan C. Finnegan.
He proudly served the United State of America in the Army. He served in Vietnam and retired with honors as E6 SSG.
He was loved by colleagues as a technical broadcast engineer for WGBH Channel 2. He was awarded 2 Emmy Awards during his career first, in 1988, for Sports Emmy Award Technical Team Remote Games of the XXIV Olympiad NBC Venue Technical Manager and then, in 1991-1992, for Day Time Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Technical Direction Electronic Camera/Video Control for filming “This Old House.”
He was an avid sailor and docked his sailboat at Mattapoisett boat yard in Buzzards Bay, Mass. He was a passionate photographer and enjoyed black and white films. He learned to cook from Julia Child while filming her show for PBS.
The Fairweather family would like to thank the staff at Mount Saint Rita Health Centre for all the compassion shown to Bill and his family.
Relatives and friends are invited to attend a funeral procession from Duffy-Poule Funeral Home, located at 20 Peck St., Attleboro, to the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, Massachusetts (Bourne National Cemetery) which will leave promptly from 20 Peck Street, Attleboro MA at 9:45 am on December 19, 2024.
My dear Bill…. How I will miss your smile and laugh as you told me of the latest adventure of a shoot. I tried to get you to do an archive interview but you said you might offend too many people.
You were dearly loved and all respected your way at looking at the absurd nature of life. You were wonderful. Probably no more so when you were the techy to help Nam June Paik with his crazy video synthesizer. Paik worked for months getting his little B&W surveillance cameras juiced up with chroma and color. Then the station let him do a 4 hour broadcast using his little crazy synthesizer. You did everything you could to make it exist in broadcast specs…. but to no end, Paik blew out the WGBH transmitter.
And thank God your telling of that story was captured on video when Ambrosino, Tappan and myself did the last tour of studios on Western Ave. Again, there you were, with that smile and laugh…. You were marvelous… as Jordan Whitelaw would have said.
Peace. Fred
Bill was kindly, a calming presence. God bless the Fairweather family.
Thank you all for your thoughts and kind words remembering my father. It’s a sad time for me and my family! He will be missed deeply.
Bill was a mentor to me. To this day I still use the skills he taught me. When we worked on Pops together, I would watch him in awe.
I’m deeply saddened to hear of Bill’s passing. I had the fortunate pleasure of working with him on many remotes and local productions. Bill had a great sense of humor and working with him made it very enjoyable. Bill was a fantastic and class act guy all the way.
I as a veteran also salute you and thank you for your service. Take care my friend.
I am saddened to hear of Bill’s passing. He was a mentor of mine and a good friend. When I think of my years at ‘GBH they always include time spent with Bill.
I echo all that Jane said about Bill; he was a person who had many skills and used them wisely to help others.
I will always admire his strength and conviction.
May he rest in power.
I had just a short tenure at WGBH (1968-1971) before leaving the station to work for PBS (for the next thirty-odd years). I had an even shorter tenure in my very first WGBH job as Manager of Scheduling and Facilities, working for Al Hinderstein, with Janie Arsham at my side doing the real work because I was a newbie and she knew the ropes…and the players, including the two audio guys, Bill and Will.
I still have lots of wonderful memories of those three years and my co-workers at WGBH who are regular contributors to these pages on this wonderful resource. So many of us are now in our 80’s and it’s getting harder and harder to see the passing of folks I admired so much like Russ Morash, but even of folks I hardly knew but admired. Bill Fairweather was one of those. Thanks for the reminder of Bill, Janie, and of you too! Those were good times, but oh, so long ago now.
I am sad to hear of the passing of Bill. I enjoyed working with him and, in addition to being a skilled engineer, he was a calm person to work with. I once had a talk with him about the effect of the electron tube on the video signal and why the mid-range video levels had to be compensated to approach linearity. It was clear he knew the medium.
I hadn’t seen him in years but I will miss him.
I remember Bill as a talented engineer with a great sense of humor. He was one of an amazing group of engineers and studio crew that worked endless hours creating so much original programming that served to etch WGBH’s name in the world of public television. And I remember sitting with a group at the old HoJo’s on Soldiers Field Rd when his unit was called up to serve in Viet Nam. He served his country with honor.