Peter Tallman of Louisville, Colorado, passed away peacefully the morning of March 1, 2021 after a long struggle with colorectal cancer and Parkinson’s disease. He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Ellen (Maher) Tallman, daughter Kate Tallman (husband-Jake Williams) of Lafayette Colorado, and son Michael Tallman (wife-Leah Costello) of Hinesburg, Vermont. His grandchildren Rylee and Marlo Williams(Colorado), and Theo, Iris and Ruby Tallman(Vermont), brought him much joy.
Peter was born May 15, 1946 in Manchester, New Hampshire and grew up with brothers Stephen and Arthur and sisters Elizabeth and Judith in Candia and Rye Beach, New Hampshire. He majored in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics at Worchester Polytechnic Institute. Following graduation Peter joined IBM in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1967 where he met his wife, Ellen, as well as many of their lifelong friends. In 1968-1970, during the Vietnam war, Peter served in the US Army in a Pentagon computing unit and then returned to IBM, Poughkeepsie, where he was an inventor on multiple patents related to large computing systems and worked for 26 years.
Peter was preceded in death by his parents Charles V. Tallman and Louise (Heermance) Tallman and also his brother, Arthur V. Tallman of New Hampshire. In addition to his wife Ellen, children Kate and Michael Tallman, and his 5 grandchildren, he is also survived by his brother Stephen Tallman, his niece Amanda Tallman, nephew Adam Tallman, and sisters Elizabeth Tallman and Judith Tallman, all of New Hampshire.
Peter had a lifelong passion for gardening. Inspired by a trip to Europe in 1985, he learned techniques to graft scion wood to grow dozens of heirloom varieties of apple trees in his yard in Wappingers Falls, New York. After early retirement from IBM, Poughkeepsie, Peter relocated to Colorado in 1993 to work at StorageTek, and adapted his fruit growing techniques to the mountain west that included growing apples, blueberries, black raspberries, and sweet and sour cherries. He continued a project begun in New York state to develop a new breed of fall bearing black raspberries which he patented and assigned the name of 'NIWOT' , becoming commercially available after Peter’s retirement from StorageTek where he worked for 10 years.
Donations in Peter’s memory can be made to the Friends of the National Clonal Germplasm Repository at Oregon State University, an institution established to preserve plant biodiversity for long term sustainability of the world’s food supply. Peter collaborated with this group on his decades-long black raspberry breeding project.
https://agresearchfoundation.oregonstate.edu/friends-national-clonal-germplasm-repository
