Hugh Joseph Worthen

Hugh Joseph Worthen, 87, of Sun City, passed away on Wednesday, July 29, at Savannah Memorial Hospital. Son of a merchant marine captain and a concert pianist and translator, Hugh was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He spent much of his youth in the Bronx and in Vermont, graduating from Bennington High School, where he starred in football and baseball. Enlisting on July 4, 1946, Hugh served as a radio navigator in the Naval Air Corps. He graduated from Bucknell University in 1953, having briefly studied at Syracuse. He married Marilyn Hope Smith of East Williston, New York, on August 7, 1954. They began their marriage as prizewinners, when Hugh won a Cadillac El Dorado in a nation-wide essay contest promoted by the columnist Walter Winchell. Hugh pursued a successful career in the sales of industrial equipment, moving with his family-Marilyn, and sons William and Wade-to Sudbury, Massachusetts in 1963. After Hugh retired as regional sales manager for the Xomox Corporation, he and Marilyn moved to Sun City in 2003. Hugh always had a wide range of interests, from painting to racing outboards, and from hunting and fishing to square dancing. An avid reader of all things military, Hugh's interests spanned from American and European history to, more recently, historical fiction about World War II in Finland and Estonia. His playfulness and creative wit found various forms of expression, including gently humorous caricatures of his friends, comic odes on group vacations, and well-told accounts of personal adventures. He is survived by his wife Marilyn, and by sons William Blake Worthen, married to Hana Worthen, of New York City, and Wade Bolton Worthen, affianced to Jean Childress, of Greenville, SC. His two grandchildren, Joseph Robert Worthen and Kathleen Elyse Worthen, live in Greenville as well. A memorial service will be held at Sauls Funeral Home on Tuesday, August 4th at 11 am. In lieu of flowers, the family suggest donations be made to The Wounded Warrior Project, PO Box 758517, Topeka KS 66675 (woundedwarriorproject.org). A memorial service will be held at Sauls Funeral Home on Tuesday, August 4th at 11 am.