Obituary of William Joseph Osborne

Bill was born October 18, 1926 to Arlyn Evelyn Marts Osborne and Harvey Anson Osborne in Wichita, Kansas. He was preceded in death by one brother, James Osborne Burri, his wife, of 59 years, Shirley Reuss Smith Osborne and daughter, Diana Nancy Osborne. He is survived by four children, William Joseph, Jr., Elizabeth Arlyn, Ann Braselton and Susan Erika; 10 grandchildren: Jessie Mott, John Osborne, Jonathan, Michael and Benjamin Golder, Alyssa Vooris, Amy Honeycutt, Arin Mustian, Rachael DeFazio and Arlyn Harris and many great and great-great-grandchildren. In 1931, in Albuquerque, NM, father Harvey died suddenly. His mother having no way to support the family sent him to live with her sister Valera “Dero” in New York. There were difficulties and Dero sent him back to Kansas and adopted his brother James instead. His mother found a farm family to take Bill in and he was raised on different farms, attending a one-room schoolhouse. It was the dust bowl and he told of a plague of locusts so thick that they smashed them in holes with fence posts. Finally he came to live with mother Arlyn and brother Jim. Bill was recruited out of high school for work on what became the Manhattan Project, but decided instead to enter the University of Delaware, dropping out to join the Navy in 1944 at 17. He trained as a tail gunner in a dive bomber and was in San Diego expecting to be deployed to invade Japan when the war ended. Mustered out in 1946, he hitchhiked home across the country. After the war, he entered the University of Delaware, and graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering in 1947. He met and married Beryl Gulick of Wilmington at the University and they had the first three children together:, Joe, Arlyn and Ann came along. Hired by General Electric Corp., he worked in Schenectady and Trenton, leaving in 1954 to join startup Arbonite Corp. in Doylestown, PA engineering plastisol coatings and doing sales. In 1957, he married Shirley Reuss Smith and they had two children, Diana and Susan. He went back to GE at their Missile and Space Division in Philadelphia, building re-entry coatings and parts for space capsules, and the Corona spy satellites, with a Top-Secret security clearance. When the division downsized in the mid-sixities, Bill went back to school for his MBA at Temple University. He moved into management and Quality Assurance until he began work for GE in Valley Forge, then division downsized in the early sixties. He then went to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory as head of Quality Assurance for the Tokamak Fusion Reactor under construction there. He traveled the world inspecting suppliers' factories and the parts they were building, finally retiring in 1991. He then did Quality Assurance consulting, and was responsible for a brief shutdown at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant due to non-compliance issues he uncovered. He became active in RAMS, the Reliability and Maintainability Society, becoming their national secretary. He was an accomplished photographer. He was one of the first skin divers in the area, building his own wetsuit and assembling his own equipment as a member of the Abington Sub-Mariners. He met Jacques Cousteau, inventor of SCUBA at a meeting. He loved camping and hiking in the Adirondacks and spent many vacations there with family. He also took up skiing until he destroyed a knee. He joined ATRO, the Abington Township Republican Organization, working as a canvasser and poll watcher for many years. He also was active in the Abington Township Town Watch. In Roychester Park, where he lived, he could often be seen patrolling on his bicycle and picking up trash to keep the park clean. Memorial service will be held at 11:00 AM on Saturday, September 2, 2023, Abington Presbyterian Church, 1082 Old York Road, Abington, where relatives and friends will be received from 10:00 AM until the time of the service. A reception will follow the service at the Community House in Roychester Park, Parkview Ave, Abington PA 19001. Interment in Washington Crossing National Cemetery will be held privately. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Abington Township Public Library, 1030 Old York Road, Abington, PA 19001 (www.abingtonfreelibrary.org) or the Abington Township Police Athletic League, 1166 Old York Road, Abington, PA 19001 (www.abingtonpal.org) Zoom Link for this who wish to attend online. Zoom Channel opens at 10AM for those who wish to visit. Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/8951769115?pwd=TkZLeU1MY2d5eUpqeTJ5WUJTRHlVUT09 (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/8951769115?pwd=TkZLeU1MY2d5eUpqeTJ5WUJTRHlVUT09) Meeting ID: 895 176 9115 Passcode: 2