Austin Price, a former Pacific Palisades real estate broker and low-handicap golfer, passed away on May 3. He was 88. Born Lois Austin Price on October 23, 1917 in Kiln, Mississippi, to Beulah Beauregard Parker and Ruben Aloysius Price, Austin was in sales all of his life. He started out by selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door, as a primary source of income for his parents at the age of 13, during the Depression. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles, class of 1935, and obtained his real estate and broker’s license in 1953. He was an owner of Townsend & Simpson Real Estate in the Palisades and was an active citizen, performing in local plays and serving as president of the Los Angeles Realty Board and the Palisades Optimist Club. He was a lifelong optimist, and a great raconteur who also also enjoyed dancing, A-level tennis and all kinds of fishing. Price was blessed with lifelong health–physically and mentally–and retained his marvelous sense of humor and clever wit, right to the end. He had requested that his ashes be buried with those of his late wife, Margaret O’Brien Price, in the roots of a lovely yellow rose bush that he kept outside his window ever since her death in 1996. He had moved the bush from Sarasota, Florida, to Novato, California and, most recently, to the Veterans Home in Barstow, where he passed away of natural causes. Price is survived by his daughters, Janis Grabowski of Upland and Jean Price Lewis of Novato; his son, Jonathan Austin Price of Seaside, California; and eight grandchildren: Patrick, Michael, and Neal Grabowski, Julie Vaughn, Michelle Marquis, Noelle Barron, Angela Perkins, and Jeffrey Price; and 18 great-grandchildren.
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