Willard Richardson Espy was born on December 11, 1910, in Olympia, Washington where his father was a state Senator. He was brought up in Oysterville, in southwestern Washington, a village co-founded by his grandfather in 1854. He graduated from Ilwaco High School in 1925 and in 1930 from University of Redlands.
After college, Willard and Clinton McKinnon, a fellow graduate, hitchhiked across the country to NYC, where they found 3rd class passage on a ship to Le Havre, France. With only $50 between them, they planned to continue their hitchhiking - still an American novelty - sightseeing in France, Belgium, and Germany. Willard often used his skill at palmistry to barter for food. By the time Willard arrived in Paris, his beard had grown to such a luxurious size that he was able to support himself as an artist's model. The two young men separated, and WRE enrolled first in the University of Grenoble and then later at the Sorbonne.
Returning to the States and hitchhiking cross-country once again, he found a job in California's Imperial Valley as a reporter, one of two employees on a local newspaper. In 1932, Reinhold Niebuhr was the editor of the World Tomorrow, a socialist, pacifist, Christian magazine. He offered WRE a post on the editorial staff. The World Tomorrow collapsed, and WRE became a correspondent for Agence Havas, translating French cables into English until the Germans marched into Paris in 1940.
In 1941, he took a job with Reader's Digest in Pleasantville, New York, first in the circulation department, eventually becoming Promotion Director. In that capacity, he interviewed many notable figures of the day, including Winston Churchill, Adenauer, Einstein, etc. He left the Digest in 1957, and as a public relations consultant worked for several firms, including Famous Artists Schools.
After contributing acrostic verses to Punch for about 2 years, he expanded that material into his first book, Game of Words, published in England and then in the United States. An Almanac of Words at Play, a best seller, came out in 1975, followed by Oysterville, Roads to Grandpa's Village in 1976, a vivid account of his pioneers forebears and how they finally landed on the coast of Washington Territory.
Nine other books followed, including A Children's Almanac of Words at Play and Words to Rhyme With, a rhyming dictionary. Not long after the publication of his last book, The Word's Gotten Out, in 1989, he lost the sight in one eye and partially in the second, making it difficult to write or read as well. His final book was Skullduggery on Shoalwater Bay, published in 1998.
