My association with Prof. Waas began when we were schoolboys studying at St. Joseph’s College, Colombo. He chose to study Science and I to do Arts. We lost contact with each other after leaving St. Joseph’s. However, we had a happy renewal of friendship when I met him here in England. I visited him at Southampton about three years ago and when I met him in London, he did not look too well, though he told me that ‘everything was under control”.
As a medical student at Ceylon Medical College, he gained a First Class in his Final Examination. He fulfilled his early promise at St. Joseph’s College, where he gained several prizes. He was soon appointed as a Lecturer in Anatomy at the Ceylon Medical College. In 1951, he was awarded a Doctorate in the University of Manchester. As Professor of Anatomy in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), he visited the USA and Japan on Research Fellowships. He relinquished the Chair of Anatomy in Sri Lanka and accepted a similar appointment offered to him by the WHO in Indonesia. He then came over to England and accepted a post in the Anatomy Department of Southampton University, where he later became the Professor of Anatomy and remained there until his retirement a few years ago.
Old Joes will no doubt cherish the memory of this distinguished Old Josephian, who lived very much in the spirit and purpose of the College motto: IN SCIENTIA ET VIRTUTE, as a man of deep learning and with a wonderful personality. His services were not circumscribed by the shores of his homeland but overflowed to Indonesia and to England. Wherever he went, he was highly appreciated and respected. He was as unassuming as he was impressive. An octogenarian. Prof. Waas has gone to a well-deserved rest. Though the light of his life has been extinguished on earth, that light will shine all the brighter and for ever in a higher firmament. There is no doubt that he would very much have wished to be remembered as a devout Christian, who placed his implicit trust in the hands of the Great Healer, Jesus Christ. Well may St. Joseph’s College and Old Joes affectionately remember him as one who contributed to the tradition of Josephian excellence by his untiring services to his ailing fellow beings.
C. M. G Dias
From – USA Bridgeteens of America and Old Joes of America.
Date unknown (Around 2010)
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