William D. Townsend

Bill, as he was called, married Majorie Ann Snoskey in 1942. They were lovebirds and best friends, their closeness was born out of the Great Depression and terrible conflict of World War II. They married weeks before his induction into the U.S. Army to fight in the Pacific. The couple eloped and were married by a justice of the peace in Bel Air, Md., close to where he died.

He met Ann when she was 14. She died in 1998.

Bill is survived by sons, Michael, of Burlington, Vt., executive editor of FreePressMedia/Burlington Free Press; and Stephen, of Fairbanks, Alaska, who is retired; daughter-in-law Annette Townsend, retired; grandchildren William, Nathaniel of Burlington and Theresa of New London, Conn., and also three great-grandchildren - Blake, Jude and Avery. Bill's first born, William II, died in 2002.

Bill Townsend was a quiet and giving man with a wonderful sense of humor, who cherished his family and his wife, and deeply appreciated renewing domestic life after serving three years in World War II.

Bill was part of the famed Red Arrow Division, which spent 556 days in combat, more than any other American division. He was an infantry combat soldier. Upon deployment he was the lead scout in his unit remarkably for nearly an entire year in the jungle of New Guinea. He was among the few survivors of original recruits in the unit. He then was sent to fight in the Philippines. He carried fond memories of the kind reception from his Filipino hosts and through the years kept in touch with friends he made during the war.

He and his vivacious bride settled in Timonium - Baltimore suburban pioneers - just as the boom began in the early 1950s. A social butterfly, Ann was known far and wide for her ability to talk for hours on end. She was an accomplished seamstress, making all of her own clothes; a fantastic cook, and she stirred up the best Maryland crab soup west of Atlantic Avenue. Bill stayed in their post-war dream house his entire adulthood.

Bill worked for Baltimore County government in the public works department. He and Ann were inveterate political grass-roots campaigners, who were invited to the inaugural ball for President John F. Kennedy. They were quite proud of the invitation, though they never attended.

In the early 1960s, they turned against machine-controlled Democrat politics to support an "honest" candidate, a Republican, who would become county executive and six years later vice president of the United States. They created a new campaign team, "Young Democrats for Republicans." That county executive was Spiro T. Agnew.

After Agnew's resignation, Bill and Ann never again participated directly in local politics.

Still, neither could remain silent about the conducting of public affairs of Maryland. Bill was an avid writer of letters to the editor pages. The Baltimore Sun ran his commentaries routinely. Ann was a grass-roots poet with a unique knack for rhyming words that targeted power brokers of any political persuasion.

Bill was a student Townsend family history. Three brothers from England settled in Glen Cove and Oyster Bay, N.Y., in 1630. A Townsend accepted the surrender of the French at the Plains of Abraham in Quebec after the battlefield death of British Gen. James Wolfe in the French and Indian War, according to a family history written in 1912. He was especially proud of a distant relative, Robert Townsend, who became known for being the most effective spy for Gen. George Washington during the British occupation of New York and Long Island during the Revolutionary War.

He was a fan of American history. He was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, a member of the War of 1812 Society, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Sons of the Union. He knew his past and loved telling stories.

Bill will be buried next to his bride in Dulaney Memorial Gardens, a place he visited every day after his wife died, near his mother, Lucy Bennett Townsend and several hundred feet from the grave of Spiro Agnew.

His cheerfulness, his storytelling and his love of family will be missed by those of the Townsend, Bennett and Black families

who settled many years ago in what was known locally as the Land of Pleasant Living.

Bill Townsend will always be remembered for his kind eyes.

The family will receive friends in the LEMMON FUNERAL HOME OF DULANEY VALLEY INC., 10 W. Padonia Road (at York Road) Timonium, MD 21093 on Thursday, March 6 from 4 to 7pm. A funeral service will be celebrated in the funeral home on Friday, March 7, 2014 at 11am. Interment Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens. Please omit flowers.