Josephine Townsend Herron

Josephine T. Herron of Easton died at 10 a.m. on Friday, January 8, 2016. She was 96. Born Christmas Day, December 25, 1919, in Ypsilanti, MI, Josephine (known as Jody throughout her childhood and most often as Jo as an adult) was the daughter of the late Leigh Delos Townsend and Muriel Webb Townsend and the brother of the late James Allen Townsend. During the height of The Great Depression in the mid-1930s, the Townsend family moved to Morgantown, WV, where Josephine completed her junior and senior year of high school. After graduation, the family moved to Delaware, OH, where she attended Ohio Wesleyan University, earning a BA in Elementary Education in 1941 and meeting her future husband, fellow OWU student Don Pershing Herron of Cleveland. Serving in the Army Air Corps and based in Texas, Don called his fiancée shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and asked Jo to marry him. She traveled by train to his base in Texas where the two were married on Christmas Eve of 1941. After WWII and with the help of the GI Bill, they built their home in Lyndhurst, OH. In 1956, the Herron family first moved to Littleton, CO, and then to Severna Park, MD, in 1961. In 1963, they moved to Rockville, MD, where Jo taught second grade at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School in Washington, DC, for eleven years. Upon retirement, she was honored with a classroom named for her. A charter member of Faith United Methodist Church in Rockville, she served there as a Sunday school teacher for many years. When she and Don retired in 1984, they moved to Easton, MD, where they became members of St. Mark's United Methodist Church. Don Herron, Jo’s husband of 57 years, died in 1999. Mrs. Herron is survived by a daughter, Ann Crane Harlan of Centreville, MD; a son, James Townsend Herron of Oxford, MD; another son, Thomas Keith Herron of Myrtle Beach, SC; a nephew, Leonard Townsend of Cumming, GA; grandchildren, Richard P. Crane, Jr., Matthew D. Crane (1973-1977), Sarah Crane, Keith Herron, Elizabeth Herron, Nicole Ohanian, Pamela Herron and Courtney Schweiger; and great-grandchildren, Owen Crane, Audrey Crane, Madelyn Johnson, Evan DeSouter, Ethan Herron, Mia Herron, Jonathan Ohanian, and Joshua Ohanian. A memorial service will be held at the Centreville United Methodist Church in Centreville, MD, on Sunday, January 17t, at 3 p.m. Mrs. Herron’s ashes will be interred next to those of her late husband on Saturday, March 26, at Faith United Methodist Church in Rockville, MD. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in memory of Josephine Herron to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School, 4700 Whitehaven Pkwy, Washington, DC 2007 (202) 342-2805.

Josephine Townsend Herron

December 25, 1919 - January 8, 2016