John L. Godfrey Jr. | Investment executive, 86

John L. Godfrey Jr., 86, of Blue Bell, an investment firm vice president, died of complications from strokes on Saturday at Abington Memorial Hospital.

Mr. Godfrey graduated from William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia and attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. During World War II, he served in the Coast Guard on the East Coast.

After the war, he attended Philadelphia College of Textiles and Sciences, now Philadelphia University, before joining the family business, Bloomsburg Hosiery Mills. He later became president of the company.

When the business was sold in 1959, he joined the brokerage firm of E.W. Clark in Germantown, which later merged to become Janney Montgomery Scott Inc.

He never retired, said his daughter, Susan Thornton. He was brilliant with numbers and loved his work, she said, and was an excellent card player who enjoyed reading mysteries and doing crossword puzzles.

Mr. Godfrey and his wife, Margaret Seitz Godfrey, raised two children in Abington. They met as teenagers in Ocean City, N.J., and married in 1943. Mr. Godfrey coached Little League in Abington and was vice president of the Abington Community Association. He and his wife later moved to Blue Bell, where he was president of Whitpain Farm Homeowners Association. After his wife died in 1998, he moved to Normandy Farms Estates in Blue Bell.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Godfrey is survived by five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His son, John III, died in January.

A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the auditorium of Normandy Farms Estates, 9000 Twin Silo Dr., Blue Bell.