Retired engineer, environmentalist hit by a truck Sunday
night
Gilroy – Norman Watenpaugh walked six miles a day, two miles after every meal. He walked briskly, despite his 76 years, as swift as the birds he doted on. They called him the Birdman of Gilroy: guardian of bluebirds and barn owls, architect of hundreds of birdhouses.
Sunday night, he was almost home as he crossed Wren Avenue. He didn’t see the truck speeding toward him, and unfortunately, the driver didn’t see him.
“Gilroy lost its Birdman,” his wife Michiko said quietly, folding her hands.
The Dodge pickup hit Watenpaugh as he crossed near El Cerrito Way. He was a block from home, where an hour earlier he celebrated his 76th birthday with his family, splitting pumpkin pie with his grandkids, tearing open gifts and playing board games until dusk. Afterwards, he went out walking, as he always did, Michiko said.
But he didn’t come back.
At 7:09pm, Gilroy police received the call. Flares blocked the street from Welburn Avenue to First Street, where shaken crowds gathered on the sidewalks. Yuri Nunez, 33, from Hollister, was standing with his sister outside her Wren Avenue apartment when they heard the sickening sound: not a screech of brakes, but a thud. Hours later, people still clustered on Wren Avenue, hushed and somber.
The driver, a Gilroy man, was not arrested, but could face “a whole slew of charges,” said Sgt. Kurt Svardal. The incident will be submitted to the district attorney’s office for review.
Despite street lights, the road is dark at night, say neighbors, and cars barrel down Wren Avenue, cutting between busy Welburn Avenue and First Street. In the last three years, there have been at least six accidents at the nearby intersection of Welburn and Wren avenues, one causing injury, according to data prepared by crime analyst Phyllis Ward.
“I’ve only lived here since March, and I’ve already seen two accidents,” said Steve Zuniga, 45, a resident of El Cerrito Way. He worries about the kids who cut across the wide avenue each afternoon. “There’s no place to cross here, unless you go down to First Street.”
Sunday, as the sun set, Michiko Watenpaugh grew anxious. She left the house to look for her husband, and found police cars gathered on Wren Avenue, Norman’s body veiled by a sheet.
“It was horrific,” said Norma Watenpaugh, one of their four children. “We were in shock.”
They didn’t expect to lose him so soon, daughter Susan Bruner said. Before his death, he used to say he had another 10 years in him, at least, and he’d scarcely slowed after retiring from Gilroy Foods, where he worked as an agricultural engineer. His daughters rattle off his activities: the Audubon Society, Gilroy Garlic Festival, Lions Club, Boy Scouts, Earth Day, Senior Center, and the nameless small gardens he planted in every corner of Gilroy. Norman’s bird-shaped whirligigs spin above the blossoms of his corner lot, a certified natural habitat.
“He growed a lot of plants,” said Megan, age 7, one of three grandchildren.
“Grew,” corrected Sandra McCarthy, Watenpaugh’s daughter.
“So many flowers,” Megan added. “Like a jungle.”
An Air Force veteran, he hated war, but loved soldiers. He attended church every Sunday, alongside grandson Brett. He believed in the sanctity of nature, and the dignity of animals and birds. At city meetings, he was an environmentalist gadfly, a member of Save Open Space Gilroy.
“He was so concerned about some western bluebirds,” recalled David Houston, Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, “that he was feeding them mealworms, their favorite thing. He’d hang a feeder nearby and make sure nobody messed with it.”
Houston also credits him with saving South County’s barn owls. He’s built more than 100 birdhouses for them, built to the species’ unique needs. Walk along Uvas Creek or Las Animas Park and you’ll see them: small wooden houses, perched in the trees.
Even a stray cat he nursed back to health still lingers in Norman’s yard. Every animal – bird, cat, or human – knows kindness.
Which is to say, it knew Norm.
