Born:  September 27, 1946 to Don C. and Lillian Erb Townsend, in Houston, Tx

Died:  August 22, 2021, 12:58 P.M., NFL Sunday kickoff time, after three months in Audie Murphy VA Hospital and acute care facilities, in San Antonio, fighting the good fight, being treated initially for pneumonia, and subsequent sepsis shock and multiple organ failures.

Don leaves this world as a man who treasured LIFE, who lived as fully as his physical body would allow. He lived among his family and friends, neighbors, people who came into and through his Life, adding to his own growth as a person. He was a people-person, doubt he ever met a stranger. He would recognize traits and accomplishments in so many of his community, attributes that governed his own life journey...Never give up.  Fight for what you believe in as right, just, and fair.  Do your best job at whatever task confronts.  Give of yourself unconditionally where and when you see need.

Don graduated from Magnolia High School in 1966, one of 29 seniors that year. He excelled as linebacker in football and as a "miler" in track and field competition. Summers would find him loading square bales from fields to the barns, or clearing for road and building construction. After high school, he worked tying steel for commercial building construction, while mornings and evenings running a 60 cow milking operation for a local dairyman.  He was a physical person, not deterred by physical labor and sweat.  He was drafted into the U. S. Army, Basic and AIT training at Fort Polk, serving in the 101 ^st Airborne , B Company 3/187 ^th Infantry, in country, VietNam, he was at Bin Oua Base Camp in the south, and later at Dac To near the DMZ. In the jungles of Nam, he was felled by sniper fire while on patrol, lying over his "sixty", with a "sucking chest wound" and unable to feel or move his legs, the AKA round having gone thru a lung and severing the spinal cord.  He lay there for four hours until choppers could get in to pick up the wounded.  Discharged with Permanent Disability, after being wounded on July 4 ^th , 1968, 21 yrs. old. Purple Heart.  Combat Infantry Badge.  Expert M-14.  Airborne (Jump Wings).  Vietnam Campaign Medal. Vietnam Service Medal.   National Defense Service Medal.

Returning home to Magnolia, he worked for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office for nine years, with deer hunting and Cowboys' football filling his time.  He married Dorrett in 1986, gaining two young teen sons, as well.  Awakening to new life possibilities, he sought VA help for long over-due surgery to  lessen enforced confinement due to paraplegia issues, began substitute-teaching at Magnolia ISD, participated in raising farmstead animals and canning garden produce...made a Life. A seven-year search for just the right spot in the Texas Hill Country ended with a chance drive around Mason's Courthouse Square , stopping in at Oliver Grote's store where the wood smoke  curling from the flue beckoned; a call to Roy Lehmburg, and, within an hour or so, the search narrowed.  The family moved to Mason County in 1993 to a hundred-plus year old farmhouse, always in progress; as Mary Hemphill said, "An old house is a life's work." Through 27 years, at the end of a day building fence,  shelling peas, or any of the raft of farmstead chores, Don would cap off that day's endeavors with a glass of wine on the front porch, Dorrett by his side, listening to the birds settling, night creatures coming alive, to simply watch the moon come up over Katy-Joyce Mountain.  On just the second trip to Mason, Don met with Glenn Marshall, toured his shop, and soon after started learning from the Master, the art of Handmade Knife-making, crafting knives for deer hunters and collectors.  He bought his first two cows from Bert Nesloney, the best neighbor a man could ever hope for, ran a few goats and Barbadoes, did the canning from garden vegetables and fruit trees, fed deer at a feeder visible from the front porch, counted L.B. Haines, Greg Dunlap, B.H. Nobles, as much more than neighbors. He volunteered to help with elections at Bethel's Precinct, was a member of Mason Baptist Church;  Pastor Ray Ash would ride his bike the ten miles out and over Mason Mountain to visit with the sometimes housebound Don. He would spend whole days with Willie Carter helping with his contract sausage-making, or help with the Firemen's Barbeque each year as health permitted, earning friendships with the likes of Bob Prater, Mickey Leifeste, Bruce Robbins, Dave Rossberg, Terry Pittsford, Louis Herrington.  What a Wonderful Life Mason gave to him.

In his lifetime, Don shook hands with a President Gerald Ford, read or watched every possible account or documentary on JFK, wished for a few moments, listening, in the same room with Obama. He thrilled at holding a two-day old Elijah, at watching a just-born Ben getting cleaned up, curls plastered to his head. Bob Lilly sent Don a personal letter (and a signed football jersey), to go with the Jerry Kramer jersey and autographed Roger Staubach photo. And he once held in his hand three Super Bowl rings earned by a visiting Dallas Cowboy who came by his room at the VA.  He hunted in South Texas for trophy bucks; made sure Kurt's first and only buck was properly mounted.  He'd talk of the many catfish cleaned for nephews, reveled in telling how one niece requested equal time learning to shoot a .22, laughed at getting pulled over by Highway Patrol on his way home after passing his driving test with hand controls on his car, because they all knew he was carrying evidence of a milestone in his life.

As the years accumulated, so did health issues, and a whole different team of professionals in Home Health Care became close friends, helped him fight new battles, sometimes mere skirmishes, but, many times long term and maintenance: Yessica and Pam, Nikki, Carole, Cynthia, Laura, Janna, Melissa, Dawn,...only a few who contributed to a life well-lived.  Over the more recent several years, Dr. Keith Burau, attending physician for Audie Murphy VA Spinal Cord in San Antonio has become a very personal close friend to Don, as well as to Dorrett, during this prolonged struggle to Live.

"Day is done,

Gone the sun,

From the hills,

From the lake,

From the skies.

All is well,

Safely rest,

God is nigh."

Don leaves his wife of 35 years, Dorrett, and (step)Sons and their Wives Josef and Tammi Pinter of Mason, and Kurt and Martha Pinter, of Kingwood; much beloved grandchildren, Elijah, Natasha, Benjamin, and Nikole; brothers Doug and David Townsend, Montgomery County, Texas, and sister Carol Townsend Lyon, Waco; Nieces, Nephews, Cousins, spread all over, Texas to Pennsylvania, especially cousin, Cindy Johnston, his "sister of another mother", and her husband, John of The Woodlands, Texas;  and his Aunt Betty Doran, of Media, Pennsylvania. Sundance, his border collie, survives his master, and numerous canine companions preceded him in death: Molly, Ed, Smokey, Peggy, CoCo, as well as Calico Cat. They filled his cup with unconditional LOVE.

Condolences may be sent to the family on-line at masonfuneralhome.net.

Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Mason Funeral Home.