William Stokes Satterthwaite

William "Bill" Stokes Satterthwaite, Jr., 90, died November 16, 2023, in Charlottesville, VA, at The Colonnades retirement home where he'd lived for the past 13 years.

He was born Aug. 19, 1933, in Wilmington, DE, the only child of the late attorney Willam Satterthwaite and the former Clifford Hanckel of Charlottesville. Bill attended Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Woodberry Forest in Orange, VA, and was a 1955 graduate of The University of Virginia, where he made lifelong friends in the St. Elmo fraternity, served beer at Carroll's Tea Room and played drums in a jazz quartet.

After college, Bill joined the US Marine Corps and was then recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency, where he worked in the DC and Baltimore area as a field agent. After the CIA, he was an investment broker and then retired as sales director for the former Michie Company in Charlottesville.

He was often the funniest and loudest person in the room. He loved being center stage, and auditioned for bit parts in movies filmed in Charlottesville. Among his film credits are the opening scene in "Giant" with James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor in 1956 where he galloped a horse across a meadow, and a speaking role as the butler in "True Colors" in 1991.

He loved all sports-baseball and tennis, especially. Bill was a starting pitcher at Woodberry Forest, and played club baseball at UVA. He coached Little League baseball in Charlottesville, and played tennis into his late 70s. He was a lifetime member of the UVA Alumni Association and Student Aid Foundation. He loved nothing more than a Cavalier football game on a crisp Saturday at Scott Stadium with a flask of bourbon stashed in his coat.

As a young man, he was chairman of the Albemarle County Republican Party and did groundwork for former Virginia Gov. Mills Godwin. By the late '80s, however, he left the Republican party because he felt it was being taken over by the Christian Right. Separation of church and state was a distinction dear to his agnostic heart.

After retirement, Bill moved to Naples, FL, where he played tennis, drove visitors on boat tours of the Gulf, and volunteered at the Collier County Sheriff's office. He also lived for a time in Fredericksburg, VA, where he was one of the original docents at the National Museum of the Marine Corps near Quantico, VA, and was a founding donor for the National Museum of the American Indian in DC.

Bill is survived by two daughters, Amy Satterthwaite Pappas of Charlottesville and Jane Satterthwaite (Edward Hynes) of Princeton, N.J., and four grandchildren, Eva and Charles Pappas of Charlottesville; and Henry and Owen Hynes of Philadelphia and Princeton.

As was his wish, there will be no funeral. Raise a toast and sing "The Good Ole Song" in his honor.