Foreign service information officer was devoted to family and had a lifelong passion for learning
William L. Harwood, 77, of South Burlington, Vt., passed away peacefully on August 23, 2023, at the McClure Miller Respite House after a 16-month battle with cancer. Bill was born in Burlington Vt., on May 18, 1946, to Theodore Harwood and Laura Jean Lathrop. The family moved to Grand Forks, N.D., when he was a young boy. Bill completed his BA with honors in American history at the University of North Dakota in 1968. In 1970 the Journal of South Dakota History published his thesis on the Ku Klux Klan in Grand Forks. He then served three years in the U.S. Army as a military intelligence NCO and completed a year of Polish language training at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. He applied his knowledge of Polish to earn a doctorate in Polish and East European history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conducting research at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He passed the foreign service exam at the American embassy in Warsaw and worked with the U.S. Information Agency as a foreign service information officer doing press and cultural work in U.S. embassies in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Poland, Russia and Somalia. While serving overseas, Bill was married to Marjorie Tomoe Yamamoto, a family nurse practitioner with the U.S. State Department, and they welcomed daughter Laura. The family returned to Washington when Marjorie fell ill, and she died in 1998. In 2001, Bill married Elaine Hubert, who had worked at the World Bank, and in 2007 they moved to Vermont, living first in Burlington and then in South Burlington. Throughout his life Bill was devoted to music, both singing and playing the French horn. Starting in high school and continuing at overseas postings and in Washington and Vermont, he loved to perform in musicals, operas and Gilbert and Sullivan. He sang with the Burlington Choral Society, the Oriana/Aurora Chamber Singers and the choir of the College Street Congregational Church, which he attended as a boy. He has served on the boards of his church and music groups and was president of the Burlington Rotary Club. He studied creative writing and wrote his life story, particularly his life in the foreign service. Bill lived a very full and productive life. Everyone who knew him will have their special memories, but three qualities stand out. First, he was devoted to family, including the group of 18 Harwood…
Foreign service information officer was devoted to family and had a lifelong passion for learning
William L. Harwood, 77, of South Burlington, Vt., passed away peacefully on August 23, 2023, at the McClure Miller Respite House after a 16-month battle with cancer. Bill was born in Burlington Vt., on May 18, 1946, to Theodore Harwood and Laura Jean Lathrop. The family moved to Grand Forks, N.D., when he was a young boy. Bill completed his BA with honors in American history at the University of North Dakota in 1968. In 1970 the Journal of South Dakota History published his thesis on the Ku Klux Klan in Grand Forks. He then served three years in the U.S. Army as a military intelligence NCO and completed a year of Polish language training at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. He applied his knowledge of Polish to earn a doctorate in Polish and East European history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conducting research at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He passed the foreign service exam at the American embassy in Warsaw and worked with the U.S. Information Agency as a foreign service information officer doing press and cultural work in U.S. embassies in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Poland, Russia and Somalia. While serving overseas, Bill was married to Marjorie Tomoe Yamamoto, a family nurse practitioner with the U.S. State Department, and they welcomed daughter Laura. The family returned to Washington when Marjorie fell ill, and she died in 1998. In 2001, Bill married Elaine Hubert, who had worked at the World Bank, and in 2007 they moved to Vermont, living first in Burlington and then in South Burlington. Throughout his life Bill was devoted to music, both singing and playing the French horn. Starting in high school and continuing at overseas postings and in Washington and Vermont, he loved to perform in musicals, operas and Gilbert and Sullivan. He sang with the Burlington Choral Society, the Oriana/Aurora Chamber Singers and the choir of the College Street Congregational Church, which he attended as a boy. He has served on the boards of his church and music groups and was president of the Burlington Rotary Club. He studied creative writing and wrote his life story, particularly his life in the foreign service. Bill lived a very full and productive life. Everyone who knew him will have their special memories, but three qualities stand out. First, he was devoted to family, including the group of 18 Harwood…