Benjamin "B.F." Franklin Townzen, Sr.

Funeral services celebrating his life and legacy will be held on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, at 10:00 AM at Elliott-Hamil Funeral Home 5701 US Highway 277 S. in Abilene. Interment will follow in Central Cemetery in Hawley. Visitation will be held on Monday evening from 6-8:00 PM also at the funeral home.

He was born on January 3, 1932, in Pilot Point, Texas where he grew up in a family centered around farming and agriculture. Around the age of 9 his family moved to the area near Tuscola/Ovalo, Texas. All his life he lived and worked in either Abilene, Texas or the vicinity of small towns and communities such as Merkel, Hodges, and Hawley, Texas. The latter was where he settled and called home.

As a younger man he worked farming activities and developed a knack for working on and repairing all things mechanical. From tractors and automobiles to combines, he could rebuild the engine from a bucket of bolts and know exactly where each part went.

While still a young boy in his teens, Dad learned a skill from a traveling movie theater, a skill which he used later in life to meet the love of his life. He helped set up a large screen and projector in small towns and would show these movies in open areas and fields around small communities. You might say it was the beginning of what was called drive-in theaters. People would bring their chairs and cars in a semicircle while a large white sheet was stretched between two poles. Dad would run the projector and lights. He said it was great as he got paid to see all the movies and it opened a door for later in life as a projectionist at movie theaters.

When BF was about 20 years old, he was the projectionist at the Linda Theater in downtown Abilene. The pretty young girl behind the snack bar was his future wife, Iva Nell Stevens. They met there and a few months later were married on September 6, 1952, in a double ceremony with her twin sister Fannie Bell and Clarence Jordan.

Soon after being married BF was drafted and sent to Korea and this was the only time the two were separated for any length of time for their 73 years of marriage. Later in life he drove trucks in the oil field as well as worked on drilling and pulling units. Driving trucks was something he enjoyed but he was also a diesel mechanic. Not only did he drive them, but he could repair them as well. Abtex Beverage Corporation put his skills to good use for many years and that is where he retired.

Iva and BF were members of the Church of Christ and were baptized by O.B. Proctor, the same preacher that married them. The congregation at 1410 Oak Street in Abilene was their church family and at one time a large majority of family members were counted among their number. In recent years, this congregation has melded into other larger congregations.

BF was preceded in death by parents William Stockton & Eunice Elna (Aaron) Townzen and

15 Brothers and sisters. Only his youngest sister remains Elna Marie Flannagan.

Survived by wife and four children: Iva Nell (Stevens) Townzen; son Benjamin F. Jr. & Wife Jaclyn, daughter Karen Lanell Phifer & husband Bruce, son Dana Craig & wife Mae, and daughter Zola Traci Bivins; grandchildren: Dan Phifer, Mack Phifer, Danielle Faulks, Natalie Faulks, Rocky Simmons;

great-grandchildren: Brody, Dylan, Maleigh, Gracie, Montana, Rainy, and Noel