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Walter's Obituary (/www.newstimes.com/news/today/obit.htm,October
26, 2003)
Walter Oller, 49, of Providence, R.I., died Oct. 3 in Providence after a long battle with cancer.
He was born in Norwalk Hospital, Feb. 6, 1954, the son of Anne (Emmerson) Oller of Georgetown and the late Walter J. Oller.
He grew up in the Georgetown section of Redding. He attended Wilbraham Academy in Massachusetts and graduated from Joel Barlow High School in Redding in 1972. He attended Marlboro College in Vermont and graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky., with a B.A. in French. He attended the Redwing Technical College in Minnesota and received a degree in woodwind instrument repair.
Walter graduated from Hollins College in Virginia with a master’s degree in English, from New York University with a master’s degree in Arabic studies and from Queens College in New York with a master’s degree in library science. He then earned his Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies from New York University with a dissertation on pre-Islamic Arabic poetry.
During his time in New York, he worked at New York University’s Bobst Library as a reference librarian.
Two years ago he moved to Providence to become a bibliographer at Brown University’s newly opened Joukowsky Family Middle Eastern Studies Library.
Walter began learning to play instruments while in high school. A multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter, he mastered the flute, guitar, bass clarinet and saxophone, just to name a few. He was a founding member of the Walking the Dragon alternative band based in Danbury and founded the improvisational jazz-influenced Dinosaur Dance Band based in Bridgeport, both in the late 1980s and early ’90s. He also had begun working with a band in Providence.
Memorial services were held at the Quaker Society of Friends Meeting House in Providence Oct. 23 and the Friends Meeting House in Scarsdale, N.Y., Oct. 25. His ashes will be interred in Umpawaug Cemetery in Redding Nov. 1 at 11 a.m., followed by a musical tribute by friends at the Ridgefield Theatre Barn.
Contributions may be made to the Society of Friends or the Arbor Day Foundation for the planting of trees in Yellowstone Park dedicated in his memory.