John H. Boyden Jr., a retired executive and a World War II veteran, died July 18 of respiratory failure at Heron Point retirement community in Chestertown. He was 94.
The son of John Hanson Boyden Sr., a patent attorney who worked with inventor Thomas A. Edison, and Margaret Lillington Parker Boyden, a horticulturist, John Hanson Boyden Jr. was born and raised in Bowie.
He was a 1939 graduate of St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Del., and began his college studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He left in 1942 when he joined the Army Air Forces and flew as a navigator aboard B-24 Liberator bombers.
After the war, he returned to Hopkins, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1948 in chemical engineering. He began his business career managing a Davidson Chemical Co. plant in Lake Charles, La.
He later worked for W.R. Grace Co. and AMAX Corp., where he was in charge of worldwide shipping. He retired in the early 1980s.
While working at AMAX Corp.'s headquarters in Greenwich, Conn., he lived in Ridgefield, Conn.
In 1985, he and his wife, the former Ann Davy Offut, whom he married in 1945, built a home on Kinnairds Point near Worton. Since 2006, they had lived at the Chestertown retirement community.
Called "Practical Jack" by his family, Mr. Boyden maintained an interest in sailing, photography and gardening.
Plans for a memorial service are incomplete.
In addition to his wife of 70 years, Mr. Boyden is survived by four daughters, Ann Davy Harwi of Philadelphia, Mary Boyden Hinely of Lexington, Va., Sarah Boyden-Smith of New Oxford, Pa., and Katherine Merriwether McCormick of Hudson Township, Ohio; and six grandchildren.