AUSTEN HENRY FURSE Jr.

AUSTEN HENRY FURSE, JR., a Texas attorney and thirty-six year resident of Austin, died Tuesday, February 16, 2010. He was 87 years old.Born in Fort Worth on February 20, 1922, he was the elder son of Lillian Ann Brazile Furse and Austen H. Furse, who had emigrated from England and worked in the west Texas oil business in Eastland, Texas. It was there that Mr. Furse grew up and in 1939, graduated from high school before attending Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.Following his post-graduate year at Andover, where his classmates continued his lasting nickname, "Fuzzy", he entered Yale University's Class of 1944. He became an English major and a starting player on both the freshman and varsity football teams.With the outbreak of the Second World War, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and served as a bombardier in the Pacific theater, including the air offensives of the Philippines and Japan. For his conduct in action he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, as well as the Air Medal with six Oak Leaf clusters and the Asia-Pacific Theater Ribbon with six Bronze Stars.Discharged as a 1st Lieutenant in late 1945, Mr. Furse returned to Yale to complete his studies and play a final season of football. He then entered the University of Texas Law School where he received his LL.B. degree and was an editor of the Law Review. In 1957 he received his Master of Laws degree from Columbia University.After law school, he settled in Houston, where from 1950 to 1956 he was an attorney for the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company and later, an associate of Butler, Binion, Rice & Cook law firm. He also lectured on property law at the South Texas School of Law. He subsequently moved to Bay City, Texas to become a partner in the firm of Bell, Camp, Gwin & Furse. In 1967 he was elected County Judge of Matagorda County.In 1973, Mr. Furse moved to Austin to become an Assistant Attorney General of the State of Texas and Chief of that office's Oil and Gas Division. In the course of his ten years in government, he successfully litigated numerous land and mineral cases on behalf of the state. In 1983, he became a counsel of the General Land Office of Texas.During their life together, he and his wife, Margaret, traveled throughout the world and often participated in informal courses offered abroad. They were also avid theatergoers with as much appreciation for the American musical theater as for the works of Shakespeare.Mr. Furse took a lifetime interest in reading the classics, in music of all kinds, in politics, and in the game of football. Quick-witted in conversation, he also had a gift for writing playful verse that delighted his family and friends.As a result of a fall in August of 2000, he suffered a spinal cord injury, which confined him permanently to a wheelchair. Yet he managed to travel with some frequency to New York and New England to see friends and classmates.Austen Furse is survived by his wife of 55 years, Margaret Lewis Furse, a past member of the faculties of Rice University and the University of Texas, and by four children and their spouses: Austen H. Furse III and Anne Seel Furse of Houston, John L. Furse and Susanne Nitter Furse of Boston, Jane Furse Friedman and John H. Friedman of New York City, and Mary Furse and Bill McMillin of Austin, as well as by six grandchildren.A memorial service will be held Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 11 a.m. at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Austin. In lieu of flowers, a charitable gift of the donor's choice is suggested.