“All things hang like a drop of dew upon a blade of grass.”
William Butler Yeats,
“Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors”
John Poor Townsend Blake, born April 8, 1940, in Seattle, Washington, the elder twin of academic and Western novelist Forrester Avery Blake and Ruth Townsend Poor, whose grandfather founded Standard & Poor’s, passed away peacefully April 30, 2025.
JPB was predeceased by his son Brent Tappan Blake in 2012 and his twin brother Brian in 2019. He is survived by his wife Terèse; daughter Ashley Merrill Roberts (husband Jeff) of Ridgefield, Connecticut; son Owen Aldrich Blake of Chicago; grandchildren Jack Louis Roberts and Clara Ruth Roberts; brother Roger Blake (wife Cia) of New Mexico; sister Priscilla van de Workeen of Massachusetts; half-brother Anthony Townsend (wife Judy) of Virginia; sister-in-law Gretchen Groat Blake of Connecticut; nephew Brian Blake of Washington, D.C. (wife Emily, son Finn and daughter Avery); and many other nieces, nephews and cousins. He was known as “Grumps” to his grandchildren and “Grunkle” to the nieces and nephews.
John lived in Denver, Colorado, Chevy Chase, Maryland, and then Westchester County, New York, when the Blake family moved there with stepfather and first cousin once removed Reginald T. Townsend in 1952.
After graduating from Pomfret School in Connecticut (Class of 1958), JPB spent summers from the age of 17 as a merchant seaman aboard freighters and tankers to Bombay, India, Spain and coastwise to the Caribbean and U.S. Gulf ports. He graduated from Princeton University, cum laude, Class of 1962. When not skydiving, JBP served as an Air Force ROTC cadet colonel, wangling cross-country high-altitude jet navigation-training flights from nearby McGuire AFB prior to receiving a rare USAF Regular Commission.
Awaiting crypto-security clearance, JPB joined a noted Anglican missionary group in lion country (Tanganyika, Africa) as a bush pilot and safari driver, returning stateside for USAF Security Service duty on Shemya AFS in the Aleutian Islands. On leave to Japan in 1964, he hitched solo, overland, from Southeast Asia via the Khyber Pass across the Middle East and Levant to take up a Signals Intelligence post as Flight Commander in Rhenish, Germany.
Absent chef d‘oeuvre credentials and averse to corporate cubicles, JPB pursued interests in consulting, freelance writing and quant-model technical analysis.
In 1982, John married Terèse. Their daughter Ashley was born in 1985. She is an associate director of scientific writing. Their son Brent was born in 1987 in Red Bank, and their son Owen was born in 1991. He is pursuing a career in sports management.
The family moved to Shrewsbury is 1994. Devoted to his beloved wife Terry and their ménage of three, JPB put youthful escapades aside for home and family.
John was linked to Franco-Norman knights and manor lords “in the ancient Wiltshire line.” His American ancestry combined original Maine Yankee settlers with 17th-century Virginia gentry. A quondam lyricist and composer of folk ballads, he was a life member of New York’s Order of Founders and Patriots, a legacy officer of Manhattan’s old-line Saint Nicholas Society, and an award-winning colleague of the Century Association’s antic Digressionist confrères.
Dubbed “the Laramie Kid” by a grizzled cowpoke on Wyoming’s high-plains Mustang Trail, JPB’s memories ranged from America’s Mountain West to D.C., Maine, Manhattan and Westchester, standing midnight wheel-watch on far passages. Prairie to seascapes, JPB followed where a U.S. 6th Cavalry forebear scouted Apache Chief Geronimo, and close relative Admiral Robert Blake’s flagship lookouts cried “Sail ho!”
Funeral services were held June 20 at St. George’s-by-the-River, Rumson.
John Poor Townsend Blake penned most of this obituary on Columbus Day 2019.
The article originally appeared in the September 11 – 17, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
