Zane C Motteler

Zane was born in Wenatchee, Washington on July 4, 1935 and when he was small, he believed the fireworks were for him. He was the eldest of four, followed by Gail, Terry, and Lee and together with their mother Betty and dad Roy the family was complete. He excelled at his studies. He was valedictorian of his graduating class at Olympia High School and won a scholarship to Stanford, which covered his tuition and books. At Stanford, he was a hasher at his eating club and worked for the Bureau of Public Roads in the summers to cover his room and board.

Zane majored in mathematics, graduated from Stanford, and was salutatorian of his class. He attended one year of graduate school at the University of Minnesota, but after living in Palo Alto for four years, Zane found the climate in Minneapolis did not agree with him, so he moved on and began working for Los Alamos Laboratory in T division.

In 1959, his youngest brother Lee graduated from high school. Zane travelled to Olympia for the ceremony and his brothers set him up on a blind date with Marilynn. They began writing to each other. Grover, his office mate, smelled the perfume from her letters and said: “Zane, you’re going to marry that girl.” He did - they were married on June 25, 1960 when he was 24 and she was 19.

Their first son, Clint, was born in 1961. Soon after, they moved to Palo Alto so Zane could finish his doctorate in order to teach at the college level which was what he felt called to do. They set out from New Mexico in a Karman Ghia pulling a trailer full of baby equipment. The Ghia broke down in the Mohave Desert and they couldn’t get anyone to stop for 6 hours. It was after dark when a car full of students from Massachusetts stopped and agreed to send a tow truck back for us.

While Zane was a student, he earned $200 dollars a month, with $100 for rent and $100 for everything else – times have changed! At Stanford, Zane was taking a pre-requisite graduate course and the requisite course at the same time and got A’s in both. He would ride his bike to campus to save gas. After 2 years, he had his thesis approved and the family moved back to Los Alamos now with two children, Clint plus Cara who was born at Stanford. In 1965, Renee, their third child, was born in Los Alamos. Soon after, Zane was hired at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington to head the Math department.

Zane had played the guitar since high school, and in Spokane, he introduced the guitar mass at St. Francis of Assisi calling on the bishop and playing and singing sample hymns to get his permission to do so in the parish. Subsequently he played at many weddings and on Sundays as well. While in Spokane, Zane and Marilynn adopted their fourth child, Seth.

In 1972, Zane accepted a position as head of the Mathematics and Computer Science department at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan, located just off of Lake Superior. The family lived in Houghton for 11 years. During that time, Zane acquired a second Masters degree in Computer Science at Michigan State. After many adventures in snow removal, Zane accepted a teaching position at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California, a beautiful place with no snow in sight. He refused the offer to be department chair and turned to his main love, teaching full-time and advising students.

To Zane and Marilynn’s great sorrow, Seth, who was 18 at the time, passed away.

Zane accepted a position at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory for a non-teaching position, which entailed writing original code for lab-wide use. For those years, Marilynn and Zane lived in Pleasanton, California and sang in the choir at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church.

Zane retired at age 65 and he and Marilynn moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he sang in the choir at St. John XXIII Catholic Church and volunteered at the Friends for the Public Library.

Zane promised Marilynn’s father on their wedding day that he would take care of her and he fulfilled that promise until the end. Zane died of esophageal cancer on January 3, 2019.

He is now singing with the angels.

The funeral will be held Friday, January 11, 2019 at St. John the XXIII Catholic Church in Albuquerque at 10:00 am. In lieu of flowers, please donate in Zane’s name to one of his favorite charities: ALS Association, New Mexico Dachshund Rescue, or The Friends of the Public Library, Albuquerque.