URBANA - William (Bill) Howard Huff, 93, of Urbana passed away at 3:20 a.m. Friday October 30, 2015 at home, with all of his children present.

Bill is survived by four sons and a daughter: Craig Huff (Debbie) of St. Joseph; Bryan Huff (Yan Liu) of Philo; Glenn Huff of Urbana; Dale Huff (Debra Book) of Urbana; Cathy Demeroukas (Chris) of Greenview, IL; grandchildren Aaron Huff, Jonathan Huff, Angela Cross (Justin) , Nathan Huff (Kate Philbeck), Sophia Huff, Michelle Demeroukas-Fetterman (Michael), and Alex Demeroukas. He also had three great-grandchildren, Tristan and Emily Cross and Magdalene Huff. He was predeceased by his infant sister Catherine in 1918 and Virginia in 2010.

Bill was born in Detroit, Michigan on May 29, 1922 to Howard and Elsie Huff , their second child. As a youngster he was known as "Billy." He worked at his father's confectionery store in Detroit selling sweets and sundries, making sherbet and other confections and performing general tasks to help his father. During the Great Depression the family commonly ate off the shelves of the store out of necessity. Bill often spoke of his mother, Elsie, as a benevolent soul who commonly fed the roving homeless of the day on their back porch. Billy often found the hobo marks for "Nice Lady" and "Friendly House" chalked on the sidewalk outside of their house on Gartner Avenue. Bill and his sister, Virginia, would spend summers at his Uncle Martin's farm in Sunfield, Michigan, where they experienced primitive conditions such as no running water, electricity, or indoor plumbing yet managed to build wonderful loving memories of that time.

As a youth he had a paper route for many, many years that he was exceedingly proud of. He used the proceeds from his route to be what he called a "clothes horse" and prided himself in his dress and appearance during high school - and was voted best dressed. He graduated from Western high school in 1940 after he which began to work a series of jobs until he ended up working at the Ford Automobile Factory Power House, in Dearborn, Michigan. He worked at Ford until he was called up by the Army for duty in World War II in 1942. He was a Corporal in the 6th Amphibious Engineers Specialist Brigade, primarily stationed in or near Homberg-Nieder Ofleiden, Germany. While overseas he lost his mother and a treasured childhood baseball card collection, 2 losses which he never forgot. He returned to the U.S. in 1945 and took advantage of the newly passed GI Bill to attend University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. One of the activities Bill would reminisce about is driving his beloved 1939 Ford coupe to big band concerts, a toboggan run and other venues in and near Detroit with his friends. A true romantic, he would often talk about how he met his future wife, Mary Josefovich. Bill had seen Mary in one of the large lecture hall cringing every time the professor would mispronounce her last name and her polite but late arrival to class. They finally met face to face one evening on top of Rackman Hall where they had both gone to take some air and think after a lecture. They started a conversation which led to liverwurst sandwiches in a local cafAC. that evening. During their courtship, Bill would drive out to Mary's mother's farm near Flint, Michigan, Mary would type papers for Bill's class work and Bill would help Mary's mother and stepfather with work on the farm. He graduated with a degree in Elementary Education in 1948 and, after a short stint as a student teacher and learning there was a degree in Library Science he decided to return to Graduate school. He graduated with a Masters of Library Science in 1950. Bill and Mary married on October 28, 1951 in Chicago at the Little Country Church in the City. They made their first home in Des Plaines, Illinois. Bill was first employed as a librarian for Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He then moved on to the University of Illinois Chicago at Navy Pier until they moved to Urbana in 1957 where Bill had accepted the job of Serials Librarian at the University of Illinois. At this time they had 2 sons and made their home on Anderson Street in Urbana. As their family grew they moved to a house on Coler Street where they completed their family of 7.

Bill and Mary were active members of the Unitarian Universalist church for decades until Mary's health began to decline. At the church, Bill served as Church Librarian and operated the Liberal Bookshop. They were members of the church's social group, the Fortnighters which would often include an impromptu orchestra of assorted instruments playing folk songs. While Mary blew her harmonica, Bill would mercilessly drill his Harmony mandolin with extreme enthusiasm and imprecision. No two instruments in the band ever seemed to hit the same note at the same moment. A great time was always had by all.

As a representative of the University, Bill would attend national American Library Association meetings to make presentations. After he went to the first few of these meetings alone, he decided never to be lonely like that again and a tradition of annual cross country camping expeditions was developed as he hauled his family to destinations from Los Angeles, California to New York, New York in an overloaded station wagon with a bundle of baggage and supplies on the roof carrier covered by a green canvas tarp secured by a generous supply of seemingly randomly placed rope. Five kids and his wife completed the load and they would be off. Besides New York and California destinations included New Orleans, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, San Francisco, Boston, stopping along the way to see most of the major national parks and other sights and taking photos with his ever present Argus C-3 camera. Some of these photo sessions took place at the most inopportune times including a picture of an exceedingly well-warned son that still managed to lose his balance and fall into a pond at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens emerging with lily pads on his head and another time when his daughter innocently and unknowingly grabbed a hold of a cholla cactus branch filling her hand with thorns in the Mojave Desert.

They moved to their final home in Urbana where their family finished growing up, all completing college of which Bill and Mary were very proud. The house has a huge front porch where he and his family and friends loved to spend countless hours enjoying their time from early spring to late autumn. Many friendships and, for his kids, romances were pursued on the porch. Virtually every summer holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day would find the family and friends on the porch having a barbeque up through the 2015 season.Assistant Director for Collection Development and Preservation with a title of Professor emeritus. During his tenure he worked with many professors to build the collections in many colleges and widen the scope of information available to all who use the library. He loved books. A title of Bibliophile Par Excellence is not strong enough for him.

After his retirement he pursued many hobbies including painting and traveling. Bill and Mary spent their winters in their beloved residence on the intercoastal waterway in Port Orange, Florida, a place too dear for words to them. They would watch the shore birds and porpoises out of their picture windows when they were not outside. During their retirement Bill and Mary also traveled the world going to Hawaii, Europe, the People's Republic of China, Australia, Fiji and New Zealand. They cruised through Belize, Honduras and Mexico. They traveled all over North America. Bill hated war. Absolutely and unequivocally despised it. He rarely spoke in any detail about his military activities in Europe with the exception of the characters and personalities he met in the army and the native populace in France and Germany. Some of the final words Bill spoke to his children included the plea for "no more wars." Bill loved books. He dearly loved his family. Most of all, he loved his wife Mary. After Mary died in 2011, Bill no longer felt complete - anchorless and rudderless. Bill was loved by many and will be missed by all. His children all feel fortunate to have been present during his final days and to have the chance to speak with him one last time. Good-bye and rest in peace Dad, we love you and hope you've found the serenity you have sought for so long. Rest in peace, friend. Rest in eternal peace.

The Huff family would like to thank Vicki Thompson for being a loving caregiver during our father's final year, the wonderful staff at Autumn Fields Assisted Living in Savoy and the new friends he made at their wonderful facility. We would like to thank the professional staff of Carle Hospital's North Tower 4 for their incredible care and patience. We are greatly appreciative of the staff at Meadowbrook rehabilitation Center in Urbana which took superlative care of our father. We would like to thank the friends of the family who brought us gifts of food to help sustain us during his last days. Thank you all.

A memorial service and celebration of her life will be held at 2:00 pm Saturday November 21, 2015 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 309 W. Green St., Urbana, IL. The Huff family requests that in lieu of flowers, a donation be made to your favorite library in Bill's memory. Thank you.