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Mystery friend was ‘Spider-Man’

Web of facts leads

to professor’s ID

BY TIM SIMMONS

STAFF WRITER

Monica Price never knew it,

but her family was one of many

caught in tne web of Peter Witt.

Months ago, Price started looking

for a forgotten friend –

someone who had helped her

grandparents in 196’7 after the

Ku Klux Klan poisoned their well

and burned a cross in their yard.

What she found was a friend to

many, a man with a strong commitment

to civil rights and some­

􀅃· one who was known worldwide.

“He has a fascinating background,”

Price said, “and so

many people knew the family.”

Witt, who died in 1998, was

best known for

his research in­

vol vi n g spiders,

which attracted

international

attention in

the 1950s and

1960s. But

Price’s grandparents

did

not see Witt as

a well-known

researcher.

Price began

her hunt for

Witt in July.

They saw him and his family as

neighbors who supported them

when Isham High, Price’s grandfather,

decided to enroll two of

his children in a previously allwhite

public school in Knightdale.

Growing up, Price had heard

stories of a white family – possibly

a professor at N.C. State

University – who became

friends with her grandparents

after an attack by KKK members,

helping them rally support

and raise money to dig a new

well But High didn’t dwell on the

story. As time dimmed memories

and Price’s grandparents died,

most of the details were lost.

Then Price took a job at

NCSU in July and decided she

should reconnect with that part

of the family’s history. Her efforts

were detailed in a story

last week in The News & Observer

that prompted several

dozen people to respond. While

a German professor who studied

spiders might have seemed an

unusual target in Price’s search,

virtually all of the readers said

Witt was surely the person she

was hoping to find.

His background, they said,

helps explain why.

Born in Germany in 1918, Witt

was trainigg to be a doctor after

the Nazis gained control of the

government. Given a Nazi uniform

at the end of his studies,

Witt chose to bum the uniform

and hide from authorities while

working at an underground hospital

near Berlin.

His wife, Inge, whom he met

later, also left Germany during

the years of Nazi control. Their

friends say the experience shaped

their views about social issues.

Active in civil rights, it was perfectly

natural for them to reach

out and support someone like

Price’s grandparents once High

deciderl tli.e children of a sharecropper

were entitled to the same

education as other students.

The two men came from entirely

different worlds, but they

shared a similar sense of justice

and determination.

Leaving Germany

After World War II, Witt

moved to Switzerland, where a

Life magazine article eventually

drew the world’s attention to his

work with spiders. Witt discovered

that drugs such as LSD, amphetamines,

marijuana and tranqu

ilize rs had specific an

predictable effects on the webs

created by spiders.

Spiders given amphetamines,

for example, seemingly lost the

ability to recreate patterns they

might spin on any other day.

Those given LSD creat¢ pe!’

GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO

fectly symmetrical webs that

lacked any of the expected variations

needed to catch flies. The

webs were an excellent tool for

measuring the effects of drugs

because of a spider’s innate ability

to spin some of the most efficient

designs found in nature.

Witt’s work was cited for years

by researchers in various fields

from the study of behaviors to the

treatment of mental illnesses. He

· moved.to Raleigh in 1966 to take

a job as director of the division of

research for North Carolina’s De­

partment of Mental Health.

‘Spider-Man’ to some

Those who knew about his

work in the labs of Dorothea Dix

called him “Spider-Man,” but at

NCSU and UNC-Chapel Hill, he

was Professor Witt, an adjunct

faculty member. It was this tie to

NCSU that Price knew from the

. family stories.

But to others in Knightdale, the

Witts were known for something

altogether different – a 35-acre

farm where they kept exotic animals.

The occasional escape of

the guanaco, which resembles a

llama, is still part of the town’s lo­

cal lore among older residents.

While in Knightdale, Inge Witt

was also known for her work in

low-income schools, which remained

largely segregated at the

time.

The couple eventually moved

to Raleigh in 1988 and built a

home near the historically black

Oberlin community in 1994,

where Witt displayed artwork,

said Richard Hall, a local architect

and close family friend.

Witt was 79 when he died.

“All of this has been an educa- j tion for me,” said Price, who has

exchanged e-mail messages with

one of Witt’s daughters in suburban

Atlanta. “I’m looking forward

to re-establishing ties with

their family, and I really want to

thank those who helped me find 1

this link.”

Staff writer Tim Simmons

can be reached at 829-4535

or tslmmons@newsobserver.com.