Willard and Deborah Brown to celebrate 70th anniversary

Willard and Deborah Brown of Battle Ground are gathering family and friends Sun., July 26, to celebrate the couple’s 70th wedding anniversary at their home in Battle Ground.

Deborah and Willard met in 1945 during WWII while stationed at Camp Lejeune Marine Base in Jacksonville, NC. Willard served as a U.S. Coast Guard Carpenter’s Mate 1st Class and Deborah as a U.S. Navy Waves Corpsman working at the base Naval Hospital. Born in Ogden, UT, Willard spent much of his youth in Yacolt where his family moved to pursue the logging industry. His father was an ordained minister. Deborah, the daughter of a Baptist minister, was born in St. Johnsbury, VT, and spent her youth in Winsted, CT.

After their military service, Willard and Debbie moved to Plantsville, CT, and in 1949 Willard earned an associate degree in Architecture from the Hartford Technical Institute’s School of Architecture. In 1968, after 25 years living in Connecticut, they packed up their five children, all under the age of 11, and moved to Battle Ground where Willard worked for more than 65 years in the building trade as a cabinet maker, draftsman, Clark County building inspector and woodworker.

Deborah has been active in the Battle Ground Community United Methodist Church for nearly 50 years and is the past president of her local study and regional garden clubs. The couple has five grandchildren. Special wishes for their platinum anniversary together, “and they said it wouldn’t last ...”