JAMES D. WELCH ’65

JAMES D. WELCH, a U.S. diplomat and a watercolor artist, died Feb. 4, 2016, at age 72. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he received his degree cum laude and with high honors in letters. After receiving a master’s and a PhD in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, he taught at the University of Houston until 1978, when he moved to Washington, D.C., to join the U.S. State Department. Already fluent in German, he learned Spanish and served as part of USAID in Bogotá, Colombia; Caracas, Venezuela; Mexico City; and Lusaka, Zambia. Upon retirement in 1998, he moved to Cambria, Calif., where his watercolor landscapes were exhibited in invitational shows and in a one-man exhibition in Caracas. He and high school classmate Mary Louise Lewis were married for 13 years and had three sons, one of whom died. In addition to the children of his first marriage, his wife, Sophie Streisand, and another son survive, as do two grandchildren.