Joseph E. Brown, 99, of Sudbury, died April 8, 2021, of natural causes after a short illness. Survived by his wife of 76 years, Ruth M. Brown, and five children - Amy Sue Damon of Williamson NY; Timothy Brown of Sudbury, MA; Peter Brown and partner Jeannette Sawyer of Fresno, CA; Peggy Brown and wife Deborah Roussell of Maynard, MA; and Sheree Brown of Northampton, MA. Also survived by four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Born at Camp Dix, NJ in 1921 to Arthur Brown of Waterloo, NY and Margaret Schmitz of Andernach, Germany, he grew up in Lyons, NY. He attended Quoddy Vocational Institute in ME and completed courses in aircraft and engine maintenance. Joe then worked with Bell Aircraft in Buffalo, NY as a supervisor of flight test instrumentation. He was crew chief of the XP-59A airplane, the first American jet-propelled aircraft, during the flight test program in CA in 1942. He served with the US Navy in the V12 program and as a radarman in the Amphibious Corps in Little Creek, VA from 1944 to 1945.
Joe was a graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo and taught Industrial Education at Geneva, NY High School for 3 years. He then worked at General Electric in Ithaca, NY as Supervisor of Employee and Plant Community Relations. He earned his MS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. Joe later settled in Sudbury with his family, working at Raytheon for 29 years until retiring in 1988.
He was a self-taught clockmaker, certified by the American Watchmakers Institute, as well as a Willard Clock Museum conservator, a Charles River Museum of Industry trustee, a silver star Fellow of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, and a past president of Chapter 8 of NAWCC and of the Greater Boston Watch and Clock Collectors. Joe restored and repaired 18th and 19th century clocks and watches in his Sudbury shop from 1988 to 2008.
Joe was a founding member and Colonel in the formative years of Sudbury Companies of Minute and Militia and was an integral organizer of the 1995 reenactment of Benedict Arnold’s 1775 expedition to Quebec. He was also a founding member and first Chairman of Sudbury Historical Commission and of the Sudbury Rotary. Other interests and affiliations were Boy Scouts of America, Jet Pioneers Association of America, Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, and the Sudbury Industrial Development Commission. He also created and mentored the educational FM radio station WYAJ at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School.
Private burial services will be held at a later time. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be made to the Memorial Congregational Church in Sudbury or the Sudbury Historical Society.
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