Bill Marshall  

July 25, 1950 – April 6, 2007

Some ASC members may remember Bill Marshall. He was a member for a while, read at a few of our New Age Fairs, and presented a lecture to us in May 1998 on Predictive Techniques. At that time, he was Vice President of the Berkshire Chapter of the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR).

Though he was born in Fort Worth, Texas, you’d never have called Bill a Texan. He grew up in Babylon, Long Island and lived there over thirty years. The past twenty years, he lived with his life partner, Kim Andrews, in the in Sharon and Lakeville areas of Connecticut.

For many years, Bill was “the” astrologer for two hours every Sunday nights on Joel Martin’s radio show on WBAB with over 100,000 listeners on Long Island. He did quick on-the-spot readings for callers. Kim tried to call in but couldn’t get through on the air. They gave out Bill’s phone number, though, and she went for a reading at his home. Only a few weeks later they began dating and they were together ever since then until he passed away this spring.

A Leo with Scorpio rising and a Sagittarius Moon, Bill used to say, “Thank God I have that mutable Moon!” But the dominant fixed signs were ever evident. Kim gives a good picture of the man he was. “When something was the right thing to do, nothing could persuade him otherwise.” She also reports, “He’s was the finest person I’ve ever known. Nicest, most honest, kindest, most brilliant astrologer, a person of high integrity. He took care of his mother for eight years after his father died and never lost patience with her. He never lied. It was physically impossible for him to even hide something.”

Physiologically, he fit his sun sign well. “He had the lion’s mane - a golden head of beautiful hair. Women were jealous.” With his Jupiter in Pisces, Kim tells us he was “very sensitive, though he tried to hide it. He was a man’s man on the outside; on the inside his soul was a delicate beautiful flower. He left this world way too soon.”

Five years in military school (on the Dean’s List every year) made him organized and clean and neat. He was grateful for that education. His English mother met his American father when he was in England during the war. For a time, Bill was married and had a son, Ian Marshall, now 29.

A specialist midpoints and cosmobiology, Bill devoured Reinhold Ebertin’s works and then went beyond Ebertin, developing own theories and ideas, which he proved in his research and readings. He had Mercury conjunct Pluto at the top of his chart with the Sun close to Midheaven. “A brilliant mind and external optimist,” according to Kim, “he was the sunshine” and would always put a positive spin even on negative things he noted in a chart. But he was not a fatalist, as some people intimated. “Bill would say: ‘I totally believe in free will. I see astrology like a road map. I read the map and tell you where the potholes are. It’s totally up to you whether you take the advice of what the map is showing.’ He cared a lot about other people, too.” He would do gratis readings to help people who couldn’t afford a reading and talk for hours to clients when they needed help without charging them. Kim also relayed that his readings “absolutely blew everybody away. Even if you thought ‘no way’ [about what he said], those things happened.” Bill wouldn’t admit he was a psychic but Kim saw a lot of evidence of that. “When he was doing his readings, he went into another zone and picked up things that were totally amazing.”

On March 14, Bill had a hemorrhagic (cerebral) stroke and was comatose for three weeks before dying on April 6. In my mind’s eye, I can still see his smiling face and beautiful golden hair.

TRIBUTES:

I grew up with Bill in N. Babylon during the 1960s. He lived at the other end of the block from my house. Neither of us were very popular with most of the other neighborhood kids, probably because we weren't athletically inclined and were more intellectually sensitive. Since he was away during the school year at military school, we mostly hung out in the summertime. Unusual in those days, both his parents worked. His mom was a nurse and his dad worked for Grumman. Consequently, we could hangout unsupervised!

All during the summer of 1964 I'd wake up at 7am and shoot over to his house on my bike. I'd throw stones at his bedroom window and whisper "Hey Bill" to get him out of bed. He'd let me in, rustle up breakfast and we'd watch The Little Rascals and the morning game shows (In color!). Then it might be model building, reading MAD magazines, playing cards, shooting off model rockets, building tree forts, trimming a neighbor's trees for spending money, and occasional unmentionable mischief to overcome the inevitable boredom of summer vacation.

A particularly vivid memory is spending New Year's Eve at his house in 1964. Always shy, his parents brought me out of my shell with games of charades. I remember walking home in the wee hours of darkness on New Year's Day 1965 intellectually invigorated.

In the summer of 1966 our big thing was slot cars. Not satisfied with the "slow" off-the-shelf issue, we'd take them apart to unwind their motors to make them go faster, which required delicate soldering. I don't remember who achieved more success. Always iconoclastic, his favorite song that summer was "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" by the Napoleon XIV. "Paint It, Black" by the Stones would also blast out of his bedroom. A seemingly major setback was when his bicycle lost one pedal. This would not be remarkable except for the fact that one very hot July day we extemporaneously ended up at my aunt's house in Huntington, almost 20 miles away. My aunt called my mom to say we paid her a visit on our bikes. I could hear my mom's incredulous scream through the phone. My aunt made us a nice lunch and we spent a couple of hours cooling off in her above-ground pool. Then off we went for the long ride back home - with Bill enduring his mechanically impaired sprocket. I still wonder today how he did it.

The summer 1967 ushered in a homemade motorized bike and an acoustic guitar where I learned to finger "Little Bit o' Soul" by The Music Explosion. His favorite song was "Reflections" by Diana Ross & the Supremes. He loved the waaap waaap synthesized sound at the song's opening. I always think of him when I hear that song.

We lost touch when I began working in the summer of 1968, so much so that we never saw each other again. I have to mention an unbelievable psychic event that occurred on Christmas Day 1999 when visiting my brother and his family. After opening presents, my brother said, "You will never believe who I saw on TV the other night." Out of nowhere came my immediate answer, "Billy Marshall." We both were dumbfounded. I don't know where my reply came from. Well, maybe I do... "Hey Bill!"

I learned of his death January 10, 2008 with some web surfing after trying to visit the Radioastrologer website. It was a COMPLETE shock. I will never forget those fun and carefree summers we spent as childhood friends.

-John Herman

BIRTH AND DEATH DATA:

Source: Janet Booth - from him.

BIRTH: July 25, 1950 1:05 PM Fort Worth, TX

32 N 54  97 W 18

DEATH:  April 6, 2007

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CREDITS: Photo of Bill Marshall taken and provided by Janet Booth.  This memorial was written by Janet Booth and created by Liz Houle with graphics from Word of Mouth Web Design.