George Willoughby presente!

George Willoughby (December 9, 1914 – January 5, 2010) – Presente!

Dr. George Willoughby - 2002

George Willoughby died yesterday, January 5, 2010.  He was 95.  His death came just short of the one year anniversary of the passing of his wife and partner in peace, Lillian, who died on January 15, 2009, just a few feet from where George spent his last minutes. 

George and Lil were always there for peace, and it seemed would always, like rocks, be there for us.  They were our touchstones and our teachers. Now, both are gone. 

In the year since Lil's death, George kept at being George, even planning for yet another trip to India next month.  Lil and George had for nearly seventy years travelled the world teaching and conducting workshops in nonviolence.  They travelled to India many times continuing the legacy of Gandhian nonviolence, to which I was first introduced by George and Lillian Willoughby in early 1968 prior to deciding to refuse to register for the draft that resulted in my first time in jail.  I understand that now two of Lil and George's grandchildren will travel to India in his stead to dedicate a fund bearing Lillian's name. 

Just after the publication in 2007 of A Biography of Lillian and George Willoughby: Twentieth-Century Quaker Peace Activists (http://www.mellenpress.com/mellenpress.cfm?bookid=7094&pc=9 ) by Gregory A. Barnes,  at a Brandywine Peace Community potluck supper and program there was a reading by the author that was followed by comments from the book's subjects:  Lillian and George Willoughby.  George had this wonderfully easy, albeit challenging, way of bringing all the theory of nonviolence down to earth where it belongs.  I can still hear him saying rather matter-of-factly without bluster or self-consciousness "well, we saw the need to do something, so we did."  

Lillian and George taught us the way peace is done.  George Willoughby, Presente! 

With love, Bob Smith, Staff, Brandywine Peace Community

You can contact the family via Sally Willoughby.  Sally's email is willowbee@juno.com.  The address to send cards is 340 Pine St., Deptford, NJ 08096.

 

Visit the following for more on Lillian and George Willoughby. 

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1021-04.htm 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Willoughby

http://www.brandywinepeace.com/demonstrations.html