David Walter Peat

David W Peat, age 88, of Indianapolis died December 25th surrounded by Family. He is survived by wife Mary F Peat (Ronnebaum), children Brian (Linnae) Peat, Ann (Joseph) Wehrheim, 4 grandchildren Michael and Nicholas Wehrheim, Emily Peat, and Sarah (Peat) Rice.

David Peat was born at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis on October 3, 1932 to Wilbur David and Talitha Ruth Peat (Rasmussen). His father was the director of the Herron Art Museum and painted during his summer vacations. Talitha was very involved in the Methodist church where she taught Sunday school for many years. He had an older sister, Patricia May Peat (Dusendschon) who was also an artist and teacher. When he was very young, his parents built a cottage at Palisades Park in Michigan where they spent most of the summer months. He grew up in Indianapolis and realized at an early age he was an engineer. After he graduated from Shortridge High School, he attended Purdue and graduated as a Mechanical Engineer.

His first engineering job was working for Sunbeam in Chicago for 6 months before being drafted in the Army in 1955. He returned to Sunbeam after his service before going to work for Western Electric here in Indianapolis.

While at Western Electric for 33 years, he collaborated on projects with Bell Labs and was granted two patents for his work on the coin shoot and call totalizer.

After Western Electric closed, he worked at Naval Avionics where he set up a clean room and worked on projects for the Navy.

In his spare time, he had various unique hobbies like model railroading, printing, pyrotechnics, and a lot of collecting.

He was always interested in antique transportation. He owned a Model T Ford truck that he enjoyed using in parades and a Singer locomotive that was originally used in the Singer sewing machine factory in Fort Wayne. The locomotive resided at the Indiana Transportation Museum, which he was a founding member of.

He collected various things over the years, but his main hobby was letterpress type and specimen books. Mary and Dave enjoyed attending various printing events each year where they got to spend time with friends from all over the country. His love of printing led him to be included in a documentary film, Pressing On, that showcases the men and women preserving letterpress.

This past July, Mary and David celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary.

Due to Covid, services will be held at a later date.