William (Bill) Hudson
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Bill Hudson 
William (Bill) J. HUDSON [Parents] was born 17 Dec 1922 in Baltimore, Maryland. He died 27 Aug 2008 in West Palm Beach, Florida and was buried in Our Lady Queen of Peace Cemetery, Royal Palm Beach, Florida. William married Florence LOWE/MCFARLAND on 1970. Bill grew up in Baltimore and finished high school there in 1941, after which he attended Princton University. His studies were interrupted when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December 1942. Having a talent for languages, he was sent to study at the Navy's Japanese Language School in Boulder, Colorado, graduating in March 1944. He was subsequently sent to the Pacific island of Peleliu to assist in the transportation of Japanese prisoners of war to Pearl Harbor and survived an attack on his ship by Japanese planes on the way back to the U.S. Back in Pearl Harbour, Bill was put to work compiling a two-volume dictionary of Japanese military and technical terms, a job that took him eight months. After the Japanese surrender in August 1945 Bill was sent to Japan where he was involved in repatriation of Japanese prisoners of war. He then spent two months in Guam before returning home in February 1946. He resumed his studies at Princeton and in June 1947 graduated with a degree in linguistics, after which he entered the financial securities business as a salesman, working with his father. This was followed in 1952 by employment as a stock analyst with financier Rober R. Young. Bill spent his later years as a private analyst and investor in West Palm Beach, Florida. Bill spent more than half a century tracing his Hudson family history. Beginning his research in 1956, he visited Ireland 29 times, succeeding in tracing his Hudson ancestors back to the 18th century and uncovering numerous branches of the family in Ireland, the United States and Australia. Bill put his findings together in a number of volumes, copies of which he donated to Tralee and Listowel libraries in Co. Kerry. His works comprise: The Hudsons of County Kerry and their Descendants (in the National Library of Ireland in Dublin as well as in Tralee and Listowel); The Hudsons of Tralee (more recent than the The Hudsons of County Kerry above; Tralee and Listowel only) The Hudsons of Kilbaha North (more recent than the The Hudsons of County Kerry; Tralee and Listowel only) and; The Hudsons of Ballyeagh (more recent than the The Hudsons of County Kerry; Tralee and Listowel only). Bill also researched the history of ownership of land in Kilbaha, the townland where his Hudson ancestors settled, and the results of this study (title unknown to me at present) may also be viewed in Tralee and Listowel libraries. Note that advance notice needs to be given to the above libraries in order to take a look at these works. |
