Marion Nancy Mead was born on April 2nd, 1940 in Amarillo, Potter County, Texas to Katherine Elizabeth Doss and Cheser Bowen Mead.
As a child, Marion contracted the dreaded polio. One day when her mother, Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead and Marion had gone downtown to shop on Polk Street in Amarillo, Texas, around Christmas time when Marion was just a toddler during World War Two, they had hailed a cab home and Marion passed out in the cab on the way home and the driver of this cab noticed this and was polite enough to carry Marion inside their residence as Katherine had all of the belongings from their Christmas shopping trip to carry inside. Katherine, who was the doctor of the family at the time and who had witnessed one of her own sisters, Martha Jolene Doss Quick, as having polio during her childhood and had helped to care for her as well, knew exactly what to do. At that point in time, the treatment for polio was not yet known, you either lived through it or you died and often times those who did survive were permanently disabled. While Marion was sick, Katherine would make her pick up marbles, buttons and beans with her toes and sort them out into different mason jars with her toes, despite this being exceptionally painful for someone stricken with polio to do but it was necessary to ensure the continued function of limbs affected by polio. Marion would get so mad at her mother because Katherine would dump everything out of the jars and make her do it over again several times although she understood later on that this was for her own good and not due to any cruelty on the part of her mother. Marion spent all of Christmas sleeping in a coma-like state before finally recovering from this dreadful illness. The only long term result of this illness was that one of her legs was just slightly shorter than the other one although it was not noticeable to any extent and you would never know it unless she told you. As a child, she also had the measles, mumps and the chicken pox which I am afraid display the trend of her being rather sick from one malady or another for most of her life. Despite this, it was always said that despite what ever was thrown her way in life, she was always so strong that no illness and certainly no one was ever tough enough to overcome Marion.
She attended Horace Mann Junior High School in Amarillo, Texas on North Buchanan Street and later went on to get her GED.
During this time period of her life, she is believed to have worked as a nurse, although I have yet to locate documentation to confirm this although I suspect that she may have worked as a nurse for the U.S. Army or Air Force.
Marion gave birth to a daughter, Susie Katherine Mead.
After Susie was born, Marion obtained a degree in Accounting and went on to become the Night Clerk and Accountant for a now defunct hotel by the Amarillo Civic Center where all of the talent for the Center would come and stay while they were in town.
In October or November of 1986 while Susie was pregnant with her first child, they had gone to Service Merchandise (Which used to be Wool Co. that served the cheesecakes that Susie loved so much as a child. This is also where Susie purchased a pair of clackers that she used to hit one of her friends, Jason Williams, with when they were children.) in Western Plaza in Amarillo, which no longer stands. They had purchased a brand new, fold up portable baby walker. They walked out of Service Merchandise and into Hastings Books and Records which was on the other side of the food court in the mall. They were looking at the magazines when Marion had set down the walker and wanted to look at a magazine on the bottom shelf and when she bent down, she just went right on over and she fainted as she had a heart attack right on the spot! An ambulance was summoned immediately and she was taken to North West Texas Hospital where she was diagnosed as having had a massive heart attack by Cardiologist Dr. Hernandez. She was in the hospital for several days and discharged. This is when she had to begin taking nitro pills for her heart.
Her next hospitalization came during February of 1988. Before she was taken to the hospital, she was very sick and in pain, including chest pains which led her daughter to believe she may have been having another heart attack and so an ambulance was summoned. Both of them had told the doctors that she was allergic to Demerol. The doctor saw that she was in so much pain that they decided to give her a baby dose of demerol anyway, a mere three drops, which knocked her out for three days during which she had hallucinations that Louie Mead was there at the hospital with her. She was released when she woke up but not before being told that she had cancer and that she needed to consult with a gynecologist. That gynecologist was Dr. Emily Archer, who gave her a complete hysterectomy and only gave her five years to live at that time. She made it another sixteen.
During 1999, Marion relocated to Florida along with Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead to join her daughter and her grandchildren in Florida.
This period of her life is remembered by innumerable stories of pleasant times with her grandchildren, of which I will share a few of my own memories with her here.
While in Florida, Marion along with the family moved to several different locations. One residence was situated on Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida. Marion and I would walk around the lake together and stop at the Lakeland Public Library in order to return and pick up many books for ourselves but mainly for Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead. We would go to the library, which at that time had a large shelf and several carts filled with books that had been donated to the library or that the library was offering for sale. I am not sure who the kind soul was that happened to donate so many different copies of A Guide Book of United States Coins by R. S. Yeoman but every time we would find a copy of this red book for sale, Marion would purchase it for me. Marion, upon our return home, opened up one of those red books and wrote me a sweet note, calling me by my nickname and telling me how much she loved me. I still have all of those books. An excellent cook herself, she would purchase copies of Cooking Light or Taste Of Home Magazine for herself to try her hand at cooking new types of dishes. While at the library, we would also take a look at the current edition of Coinage magazine and while she was off selecting the audio books to bring home to Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead, I would go to the reference section right next to the audio books and browse the copy of a book on die errors on the lincoln cent. After checking out, we would place our haul in a baby stroller to push everything home in as we often times checked out many more books than we could carry even a short distance home by ourselves.
Sometimes, we would visit the Polk Museum Of Art, which is located right next to the Lakeland Public Library and in one instance, we had our caricatures drawn there.
Other times we would go into the Stop & Shop by the library and purchase a couple of drinks or to pick up a loaf or two of bread which we would use to feed the swans at the lake, as Lake Morton is a Swan Sanctuary. Those swans were beautiful and one year, a group of students from the local college created swan sculptures to place around Lakeland. One of these swans was designed as a lifeguard and was placed right out on Lake Morton in front of where we were living so I got to see it every time I was staying with her.
Marion used to collect coins and stamps with me while we were together and she would often take me to visit Hauser's Coin Shop on South Florida Avenue where we would select coins for our albums. State quarters were quite popular to collect but we would also pick out mercury dimes, lincoln cents (Wheat pennies as we called them.), Liberty head nickels, walking Liberty dollars and much more. She always encouraged my hobbies and supported me in doing anything I wanted to do.
It was during October of 2003 when Marion was so sickly one day that she called and told Susie to get me to stay and care for Granny, Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead, so she could go to the hospital with Susie. Marion never complained about anything although we could all see she was in pain but would never see a doctor because she always said there was nothing they could do for her, so when that happened we knew something was really wrong. She was diagnosed with cancer, which had spread all over and that while they could operate on some of it, they only gave her three months to live.
Marion Nancy Mead passed away on January 24th of 2004, the birthday of her daughter, after a final battle with cancer.
Edit : 17 Jul 2023 Find-A-Grave Member 47291409 would like it known that "Not contacting to say anything to you but would like my mom's real life story to be told as it really was. She worked and retired from the Go Burger on Washington and 45th in Amarillo, Tx. She was never in the armed forces ever.".
Edit : 17 July 2023 The National Archives Fire of 1973 resulted in the loss of military records for 80% of all persons discharged from the Army between 01 November 1912 - 01 January 1960, as well as those in the Air Force discharged between 25 September 1947 - 01 January 1967 with names in alphabetical order after Hubbard, James E.. Having sent away to the National Archives for a copy of Marion's service records, a reply was received that hers were among those lost, along with a request to send any available documentation so that her service file may be reconstructed. Little was known about Marion's life prior to 1971. Marion's mother served in The Salvation Army in Amarillo. After interviews with kin, over a decade of research, volunteer work, and the acquisition of a HAM radio license, recent discoveries have been made regarding Marion's early life by her granddaughter. The Salvation Army worked with the CDVs between the 1940's and 1970's before the responsibilities of the organization were transferred. Some CDVs served as members of the Armed Forces. This Author is now in possession of the uniform, as well as several awards earned for this work. Further research is ongoing. In hindsight, there were plenty of clues regarding her training in first aid. My grandmother once applied the now out of date first aid technique of using a paste of baking soda as a draw salve to remove a wasp stinger from my right knee as a child.
A brief history of Civil Defense in Amarillo :
With the dawn of the Atomic Age came the realization that the devastation caused by atomic, or hydrogen, bombs could be brought to bear against the United States. This resulted in the creation of Civil Defense. The purpose of this organization was to increase the emergency preparedness of the public before a crisis, so that they would be better equipped to help themselves until the government could provide relief. There were a number of positions within this organization, both official government employees, and civil volunteers. The activities of this organization came to a height around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Amarillo was once home to an Air Force Base, which was closed in 1968. Being the site of Pantex, to this day it is presumed to be high on the list of anticipated targets in an all out nuclear war, being of strategic importance as one of the few facilities for handling nuclear weapons. As the Cold War progressed, and nuclear weapons became more advanced, Civil Defense responsibilities were passed to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. Tragically, many Americans have come to believe that making any preparation for nuclear war is a futile effort due to Carl Sagan, who predicted a nuclear winter. The Soviets were quick to push this suggestion for propaganda purposes. Later tests and studies performed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have since discredited the idea of a nuclear winter. Please see the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny, freely available in PDF form online, for up to date information. In conversation with Marion during her lifetime, she did make mention of activities performed during and after WWII, including participation of the family in salvage activities. This makes sense, as Cheser and his father-in-law worked in construction, masonry, and bricklaying. Those fields not only required scarce tools, but were in demand during the boom period for shelter building. Cheser would later perform janitorial work for the Amarillo ISD. There was a national campaign regarding the building of fallout shelters, and schools constructed during this era were often designed and built specifically for use as fallout shelters. Some of the more elaborate Civil Defense plans identified some schools that were to be repurposed as 200 bed hospitals, to be resupplied after a period of time by the federal government after an attack. For more information see The Civil Defense Emergency Hospital government film. Virtually all public shelters were closed and repurposed after the order was given to destroy the spoiled rations during the 1970's, which consisted solely of some crackers, and a hard candy carbohydrate substitute. A great wealth of additional information is available online, which is more relevant than ever during this period of ongoing conflicts between nuclear powers.
As a child, Marion contracted the dreaded polio. One day when her mother, Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead and Marion had gone downtown to shop on Polk Street in Amarillo, Texas, around Christmas time when Marion was just a toddler during World War Two, they had hailed a cab home and Marion passed out in the cab on the way home and the driver of this cab noticed this and was polite enough to carry Marion inside their residence as Katherine had all of the belongings from their Christmas shopping trip to carry inside. Katherine, who was the doctor of the family at the time and who had witnessed one of her own sisters, Martha Jolene Doss Quick, as having polio during her childhood and had helped to care for her as well, knew exactly what to do. At that point in time, the treatment for polio was not yet known, you either lived through it or you died and often times those who did survive were permanently disabled. While Marion was sick, Katherine would make her pick up marbles, buttons and beans with her toes and sort them out into different mason jars with her toes, despite this being exceptionally painful for someone stricken with polio to do but it was necessary to ensure the continued function of limbs affected by polio. Marion would get so mad at her mother because Katherine would dump everything out of the jars and make her do it over again several times although she understood later on that this was for her own good and not due to any cruelty on the part of her mother. Marion spent all of Christmas sleeping in a coma-like state before finally recovering from this dreadful illness. The only long term result of this illness was that one of her legs was just slightly shorter than the other one although it was not noticeable to any extent and you would never know it unless she told you. As a child, she also had the measles, mumps and the chicken pox which I am afraid display the trend of her being rather sick from one malady or another for most of her life. Despite this, it was always said that despite what ever was thrown her way in life, she was always so strong that no illness and certainly no one was ever tough enough to overcome Marion.
She attended Horace Mann Junior High School in Amarillo, Texas on North Buchanan Street and later went on to get her GED.
During this time period of her life, she is believed to have worked as a nurse, although I have yet to locate documentation to confirm this although I suspect that she may have worked as a nurse for the U.S. Army or Air Force.
Marion gave birth to a daughter, Susie Katherine Mead.
After Susie was born, Marion obtained a degree in Accounting and went on to become the Night Clerk and Accountant for a now defunct hotel by the Amarillo Civic Center where all of the talent for the Center would come and stay while they were in town.
In October or November of 1986 while Susie was pregnant with her first child, they had gone to Service Merchandise (Which used to be Wool Co. that served the cheesecakes that Susie loved so much as a child. This is also where Susie purchased a pair of clackers that she used to hit one of her friends, Jason Williams, with when they were children.) in Western Plaza in Amarillo, which no longer stands. They had purchased a brand new, fold up portable baby walker. They walked out of Service Merchandise and into Hastings Books and Records which was on the other side of the food court in the mall. They were looking at the magazines when Marion had set down the walker and wanted to look at a magazine on the bottom shelf and when she bent down, she just went right on over and she fainted as she had a heart attack right on the spot! An ambulance was summoned immediately and she was taken to North West Texas Hospital where she was diagnosed as having had a massive heart attack by Cardiologist Dr. Hernandez. She was in the hospital for several days and discharged. This is when she had to begin taking nitro pills for her heart.
Her next hospitalization came during February of 1988. Before she was taken to the hospital, she was very sick and in pain, including chest pains which led her daughter to believe she may have been having another heart attack and so an ambulance was summoned. Both of them had told the doctors that she was allergic to Demerol. The doctor saw that she was in so much pain that they decided to give her a baby dose of demerol anyway, a mere three drops, which knocked her out for three days during which she had hallucinations that Louie Mead was there at the hospital with her. She was released when she woke up but not before being told that she had cancer and that she needed to consult with a gynecologist. That gynecologist was Dr. Emily Archer, who gave her a complete hysterectomy and only gave her five years to live at that time. She made it another sixteen.
During 1999, Marion relocated to Florida along with Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead to join her daughter and her grandchildren in Florida.
This period of her life is remembered by innumerable stories of pleasant times with her grandchildren, of which I will share a few of my own memories with her here.
While in Florida, Marion along with the family moved to several different locations. One residence was situated on Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida. Marion and I would walk around the lake together and stop at the Lakeland Public Library in order to return and pick up many books for ourselves but mainly for Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead. We would go to the library, which at that time had a large shelf and several carts filled with books that had been donated to the library or that the library was offering for sale. I am not sure who the kind soul was that happened to donate so many different copies of A Guide Book of United States Coins by R. S. Yeoman but every time we would find a copy of this red book for sale, Marion would purchase it for me. Marion, upon our return home, opened up one of those red books and wrote me a sweet note, calling me by my nickname and telling me how much she loved me. I still have all of those books. An excellent cook herself, she would purchase copies of Cooking Light or Taste Of Home Magazine for herself to try her hand at cooking new types of dishes. While at the library, we would also take a look at the current edition of Coinage magazine and while she was off selecting the audio books to bring home to Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead, I would go to the reference section right next to the audio books and browse the copy of a book on die errors on the lincoln cent. After checking out, we would place our haul in a baby stroller to push everything home in as we often times checked out many more books than we could carry even a short distance home by ourselves.
Sometimes, we would visit the Polk Museum Of Art, which is located right next to the Lakeland Public Library and in one instance, we had our caricatures drawn there.
Other times we would go into the Stop & Shop by the library and purchase a couple of drinks or to pick up a loaf or two of bread which we would use to feed the swans at the lake, as Lake Morton is a Swan Sanctuary. Those swans were beautiful and one year, a group of students from the local college created swan sculptures to place around Lakeland. One of these swans was designed as a lifeguard and was placed right out on Lake Morton in front of where we were living so I got to see it every time I was staying with her.
Marion used to collect coins and stamps with me while we were together and she would often take me to visit Hauser's Coin Shop on South Florida Avenue where we would select coins for our albums. State quarters were quite popular to collect but we would also pick out mercury dimes, lincoln cents (Wheat pennies as we called them.), Liberty head nickels, walking Liberty dollars and much more. She always encouraged my hobbies and supported me in doing anything I wanted to do.
It was during October of 2003 when Marion was so sickly one day that she called and told Susie to get me to stay and care for Granny, Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead, so she could go to the hospital with Susie. Marion never complained about anything although we could all see she was in pain but would never see a doctor because she always said there was nothing they could do for her, so when that happened we knew something was really wrong. She was diagnosed with cancer, which had spread all over and that while they could operate on some of it, they only gave her three months to live.
Marion Nancy Mead passed away on January 24th of 2004, the birthday of her daughter, after a final battle with cancer.
Edit : 17 Jul 2023 Find-A-Grave Member 47291409 would like it known that "Not contacting to say anything to you but would like my mom's real life story to be told as it really was. She worked and retired from the Go Burger on Washington and 45th in Amarillo, Tx. She was never in the armed forces ever.".
Edit : 17 July 2023 The National Archives Fire of 1973 resulted in the loss of military records for 80% of all persons discharged from the Army between 01 November 1912 - 01 January 1960, as well as those in the Air Force discharged between 25 September 1947 - 01 January 1967 with names in alphabetical order after Hubbard, James E.. Having sent away to the National Archives for a copy of Marion's service records, a reply was received that hers were among those lost, along with a request to send any available documentation so that her service file may be reconstructed. Little was known about Marion's life prior to 1971. Marion's mother served in The Salvation Army in Amarillo. After interviews with kin, over a decade of research, volunteer work, and the acquisition of a HAM radio license, recent discoveries have been made regarding Marion's early life by her granddaughter. The Salvation Army worked with the CDVs between the 1940's and 1970's before the responsibilities of the organization were transferred. Some CDVs served as members of the Armed Forces. This Author is now in possession of the uniform, as well as several awards earned for this work. Further research is ongoing. In hindsight, there were plenty of clues regarding her training in first aid. My grandmother once applied the now out of date first aid technique of using a paste of baking soda as a draw salve to remove a wasp stinger from my right knee as a child.
A brief history of Civil Defense in Amarillo :
With the dawn of the Atomic Age came the realization that the devastation caused by atomic, or hydrogen, bombs could be brought to bear against the United States. This resulted in the creation of Civil Defense. The purpose of this organization was to increase the emergency preparedness of the public before a crisis, so that they would be better equipped to help themselves until the government could provide relief. There were a number of positions within this organization, both official government employees, and civil volunteers. The activities of this organization came to a height around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Amarillo was once home to an Air Force Base, which was closed in 1968. Being the site of Pantex, to this day it is presumed to be high on the list of anticipated targets in an all out nuclear war, being of strategic importance as one of the few facilities for handling nuclear weapons. As the Cold War progressed, and nuclear weapons became more advanced, Civil Defense responsibilities were passed to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. Tragically, many Americans have come to believe that making any preparation for nuclear war is a futile effort due to Carl Sagan, who predicted a nuclear winter. The Soviets were quick to push this suggestion for propaganda purposes. Later tests and studies performed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have since discredited the idea of a nuclear winter. Please see the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny, freely available in PDF form online, for up to date information. In conversation with Marion during her lifetime, she did make mention of activities performed during and after WWII, including participation of the family in salvage activities. This makes sense, as Cheser and his father-in-law worked in construction, masonry, and bricklaying. Those fields not only required scarce tools, but were in demand during the boom period for shelter building. Cheser would later perform janitorial work for the Amarillo ISD. There was a national campaign regarding the building of fallout shelters, and schools constructed during this era were often designed and built specifically for use as fallout shelters. Some of the more elaborate Civil Defense plans identified some schools that were to be repurposed as 200 bed hospitals, to be resupplied after a period of time by the federal government after an attack. For more information see The Civil Defense Emergency Hospital government film. Virtually all public shelters were closed and repurposed after the order was given to destroy the spoiled rations during the 1970's, which consisted solely of some crackers, and a hard candy carbohydrate substitute. A great wealth of additional information is available online, which is more relevant than ever during this period of ongoing conflicts between nuclear powers.
Marion Nancy Mead was born on April 2nd, 1940 in Amarillo, Potter County, Texas to Katherine Elizabeth Doss and Cheser Bowen Mead.
As a child, Marion contracted the dreaded polio. One day when her mother, Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead and Marion had gone downtown to shop on Polk Street in Amarillo, Texas, around Christmas time when Marion was just a toddler during World War Two, they had hailed a cab home and Marion passed out in the cab on the way home and the driver of this cab noticed this and was polite enough to carry Marion inside their residence as Katherine had all of the belongings from their Christmas shopping trip to carry inside. Katherine, who was the doctor of the family at the time and who had witnessed one of her own sisters, Martha Jolene Doss Quick, as having polio during her childhood and had helped to care for her as well, knew exactly what to do. At that point in time, the treatment for polio was not yet known, you either lived through it or you died and often times those who did survive were permanently disabled. While Marion was sick, Katherine would make her pick up marbles, buttons and beans with her toes and sort them out into different mason jars with her toes, despite this being exceptionally painful for someone stricken with polio to do but it was necessary to ensure the continued function of limbs affected by polio. Marion would get so mad at her mother because Katherine would dump everything out of the jars and make her do it over again several times although she understood later on that this was for her own good and not due to any cruelty on the part of her mother. Marion spent all of Christmas sleeping in a coma-like state before finally recovering from this dreadful illness. The only long term result of this illness was that one of her legs was just slightly shorter than the other one although it was not noticeable to any extent and you would never know it unless she told you. As a child, she also had the measles, mumps and the chicken pox which I am afraid display the trend of her being rather sick from one malady or another for most of her life. Despite this, it was always said that despite what ever was thrown her way in life, she was always so strong that no illness and certainly no one was ever tough enough to overcome Marion.
She attended Horace Mann Junior High School in Amarillo, Texas on North Buchanan Street and later went on to get her GED.
During this time period of her life, she is believed to have worked as a nurse, although I have yet to locate documentation to confirm this although I suspect that she may have worked as a nurse for the U.S. Army or Air Force.
Marion gave birth to a daughter, Susie Katherine Mead.
After Susie was born, Marion obtained a degree in Accounting and went on to become the Night Clerk and Accountant for a now defunct hotel by the Amarillo Civic Center where all of the talent for the Center would come and stay while they were in town.
In October or November of 1986 while Susie was pregnant with her first child, they had gone to Service Merchandise (Which used to be Wool Co. that served the cheesecakes that Susie loved so much as a child. This is also where Susie purchased a pair of clackers that she used to hit one of her friends, Jason Williams, with when they were children.) in Western Plaza in Amarillo, which no longer stands. They had purchased a brand new, fold up portable baby walker. They walked out of Service Merchandise and into Hastings Books and Records which was on the other side of the food court in the mall. They were looking at the magazines when Marion had set down the walker and wanted to look at a magazine on the bottom shelf and when she bent down, she just went right on over and she fainted as she had a heart attack right on the spot! An ambulance was summoned immediately and she was taken to North West Texas Hospital where she was diagnosed as having had a massive heart attack by Cardiologist Dr. Hernandez. She was in the hospital for several days and discharged. This is when she had to begin taking nitro pills for her heart.
Her next hospitalization came during February of 1988. Before she was taken to the hospital, she was very sick and in pain, including chest pains which led her daughter to believe she may have been having another heart attack and so an ambulance was summoned. Both of them had told the doctors that she was allergic to Demerol. The doctor saw that she was in so much pain that they decided to give her a baby dose of demerol anyway, a mere three drops, which knocked her out for three days during which she had hallucinations that Louie Mead was there at the hospital with her. She was released when she woke up but not before being told that she had cancer and that she needed to consult with a gynecologist. That gynecologist was Dr. Emily Archer, who gave her a complete hysterectomy and only gave her five years to live at that time. She made it another sixteen.
During 1999, Marion relocated to Florida along with Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead to join her daughter and her grandchildren in Florida.
This period of her life is remembered by innumerable stories of pleasant times with her grandchildren, of which I will share a few of my own memories with her here.
While in Florida, Marion along with the family moved to several different locations. One residence was situated on Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida. Marion and I would walk around the lake together and stop at the Lakeland Public Library in order to return and pick up many books for ourselves but mainly for Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead. We would go to the library, which at that time had a large shelf and several carts filled with books that had been donated to the library or that the library was offering for sale. I am not sure who the kind soul was that happened to donate so many different copies of A Guide Book of United States Coins by R. S. Yeoman but every time we would find a copy of this red book for sale, Marion would purchase it for me. Marion, upon our return home, opened up one of those red books and wrote me a sweet note, calling me by my nickname and telling me how much she loved me. I still have all of those books. An excellent cook herself, she would purchase copies of Cooking Light or Taste Of Home Magazine for herself to try her hand at cooking new types of dishes. While at the library, we would also take a look at the current edition of Coinage magazine and while she was off selecting the audio books to bring home to Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead, I would go to the reference section right next to the audio books and browse the copy of a book on die errors on the lincoln cent. After checking out, we would place our haul in a baby stroller to push everything home in as we often times checked out many more books than we could carry even a short distance home by ourselves.
Sometimes, we would visit the Polk Museum Of Art, which is located right next to the Lakeland Public Library and in one instance, we had our caricatures drawn there.
Other times we would go into the Stop & Shop by the library and purchase a couple of drinks or to pick up a loaf or two of bread which we would use to feed the swans at the lake, as Lake Morton is a Swan Sanctuary. Those swans were beautiful and one year, a group of students from the local college created swan sculptures to place around Lakeland. One of these swans was designed as a lifeguard and was placed right out on Lake Morton in front of where we were living so I got to see it every time I was staying with her.
Marion used to collect coins and stamps with me while we were together and she would often take me to visit Hauser's Coin Shop on South Florida Avenue where we would select coins for our albums. State quarters were quite popular to collect but we would also pick out mercury dimes, lincoln cents (Wheat pennies as we called them.), Liberty head nickels, walking Liberty dollars and much more. She always encouraged my hobbies and supported me in doing anything I wanted to do.
It was during October of 2003 when Marion was so sickly one day that she called and told Susie to get me to stay and care for Granny, Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead, so she could go to the hospital with Susie. Marion never complained about anything although we could all see she was in pain but would never see a doctor because she always said there was nothing they could do for her, so when that happened we knew something was really wrong. She was diagnosed with cancer, which had spread all over and that while they could operate on some of it, they only gave her three months to live.
Marion Nancy Mead passed away on January 24th of 2004, the birthday of her daughter, after a final battle with cancer.
Edit : 17 Jul 2023 Find-A-Grave Member 47291409 would like it known that "Not contacting to say anything to you but would like my mom's real life story to be told as it really was. She worked and retired from the Go Burger on Washington and 45th in Amarillo, Tx. She was never in the armed forces ever.".
Edit : 17 July 2023 The National Archives Fire of 1973 resulted in the loss of military records for 80% of all persons discharged from the Army between 01 November 1912 - 01 January 1960, as well as those in the Air Force discharged between 25 September 1947 - 01 January 1967 with names in alphabetical order after Hubbard, James E.. Having sent away to the National Archives for a copy of Marion's service records, a reply was received that hers were among those lost, along with a request to send any available documentation so that her service file may be reconstructed. Little was known about Marion's life prior to 1971. Marion's mother served in The Salvation Army in Amarillo. After interviews with kin, over a decade of research, volunteer work, and the acquisition of a HAM radio license, recent discoveries have been made regarding Marion's early life by her granddaughter. The Salvation Army worked with the CDVs between the 1940's and 1970's before the responsibilities of the organization were transferred. Some CDVs served as members of the Armed Forces. This Author is now in possession of the uniform, as well as several awards earned for this work. Further research is ongoing. In hindsight, there were plenty of clues regarding her training in first aid. My grandmother once applied the now out of date first aid technique of using a paste of baking soda as a draw salve to remove a wasp stinger from my right knee as a child.
A brief history of Civil Defense in Amarillo :
With the dawn of the Atomic Age came the realization that the devastation caused by atomic, or hydrogen, bombs could be brought to bear against the United States. This resulted in the creation of Civil Defense. The purpose of this organization was to increase the emergency preparedness of the public before a crisis, so that they would be better equipped to help themselves until the government could provide relief. There were a number of positions within this organization, both official government employees, and civil volunteers. The activities of this organization came to a height around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Amarillo was once home to an Air Force Base, which was closed in 1968. Being the site of Pantex, to this day it is presumed to be high on the list of anticipated targets in an all out nuclear war, being of strategic importance as one of the few facilities for handling nuclear weapons. As the Cold War progressed, and nuclear weapons became more advanced, Civil Defense responsibilities were passed to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. Tragically, many Americans have come to believe that making any preparation for nuclear war is a futile effort due to Carl Sagan, who predicted a nuclear winter. The Soviets were quick to push this suggestion for propaganda purposes. Later tests and studies performed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have since discredited the idea of a nuclear winter. Please see the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny, freely available in PDF form online, for up to date information. In conversation with Marion during her lifetime, she did make mention of activities performed during and after WWII, including participation of the family in salvage activities. This makes sense, as Cheser and his father-in-law worked in construction, masonry, and bricklaying. Those fields not only required scarce tools, but were in demand during the boom period for shelter building. Cheser would later perform janitorial work for the Amarillo ISD. There was a national campaign regarding the building of fallout shelters, and schools constructed during this era were often designed and built specifically for use as fallout shelters. Some of the more elaborate Civil Defense plans identified some schools that were to be repurposed as 200 bed hospitals, to be resupplied after a period of time by the federal government after an attack. For more information see The Civil Defense Emergency Hospital government film. Virtually all public shelters were closed and repurposed after the order was given to destroy the spoiled rations during the 1970's, which consisted solely of some crackers, and a hard candy carbohydrate substitute. A great wealth of additional information is available online, which is more relevant than ever during this period of ongoing conflicts between nuclear powers.
As a child, Marion contracted the dreaded polio. One day when her mother, Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead and Marion had gone downtown to shop on Polk Street in Amarillo, Texas, around Christmas time when Marion was just a toddler during World War Two, they had hailed a cab home and Marion passed out in the cab on the way home and the driver of this cab noticed this and was polite enough to carry Marion inside their residence as Katherine had all of the belongings from their Christmas shopping trip to carry inside. Katherine, who was the doctor of the family at the time and who had witnessed one of her own sisters, Martha Jolene Doss Quick, as having polio during her childhood and had helped to care for her as well, knew exactly what to do. At that point in time, the treatment for polio was not yet known, you either lived through it or you died and often times those who did survive were permanently disabled. While Marion was sick, Katherine would make her pick up marbles, buttons and beans with her toes and sort them out into different mason jars with her toes, despite this being exceptionally painful for someone stricken with polio to do but it was necessary to ensure the continued function of limbs affected by polio. Marion would get so mad at her mother because Katherine would dump everything out of the jars and make her do it over again several times although she understood later on that this was for her own good and not due to any cruelty on the part of her mother. Marion spent all of Christmas sleeping in a coma-like state before finally recovering from this dreadful illness. The only long term result of this illness was that one of her legs was just slightly shorter than the other one although it was not noticeable to any extent and you would never know it unless she told you. As a child, she also had the measles, mumps and the chicken pox which I am afraid display the trend of her being rather sick from one malady or another for most of her life. Despite this, it was always said that despite what ever was thrown her way in life, she was always so strong that no illness and certainly no one was ever tough enough to overcome Marion.
She attended Horace Mann Junior High School in Amarillo, Texas on North Buchanan Street and later went on to get her GED.
During this time period of her life, she is believed to have worked as a nurse, although I have yet to locate documentation to confirm this although I suspect that she may have worked as a nurse for the U.S. Army or Air Force.
Marion gave birth to a daughter, Susie Katherine Mead.
After Susie was born, Marion obtained a degree in Accounting and went on to become the Night Clerk and Accountant for a now defunct hotel by the Amarillo Civic Center where all of the talent for the Center would come and stay while they were in town.
In October or November of 1986 while Susie was pregnant with her first child, they had gone to Service Merchandise (Which used to be Wool Co. that served the cheesecakes that Susie loved so much as a child. This is also where Susie purchased a pair of clackers that she used to hit one of her friends, Jason Williams, with when they were children.) in Western Plaza in Amarillo, which no longer stands. They had purchased a brand new, fold up portable baby walker. They walked out of Service Merchandise and into Hastings Books and Records which was on the other side of the food court in the mall. They were looking at the magazines when Marion had set down the walker and wanted to look at a magazine on the bottom shelf and when she bent down, she just went right on over and she fainted as she had a heart attack right on the spot! An ambulance was summoned immediately and she was taken to North West Texas Hospital where she was diagnosed as having had a massive heart attack by Cardiologist Dr. Hernandez. She was in the hospital for several days and discharged. This is when she had to begin taking nitro pills for her heart.
Her next hospitalization came during February of 1988. Before she was taken to the hospital, she was very sick and in pain, including chest pains which led her daughter to believe she may have been having another heart attack and so an ambulance was summoned. Both of them had told the doctors that she was allergic to Demerol. The doctor saw that she was in so much pain that they decided to give her a baby dose of demerol anyway, a mere three drops, which knocked her out for three days during which she had hallucinations that Louie Mead was there at the hospital with her. She was released when she woke up but not before being told that she had cancer and that she needed to consult with a gynecologist. That gynecologist was Dr. Emily Archer, who gave her a complete hysterectomy and only gave her five years to live at that time. She made it another sixteen.
During 1999, Marion relocated to Florida along with Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead to join her daughter and her grandchildren in Florida.
This period of her life is remembered by innumerable stories of pleasant times with her grandchildren, of which I will share a few of my own memories with her here.
While in Florida, Marion along with the family moved to several different locations. One residence was situated on Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida. Marion and I would walk around the lake together and stop at the Lakeland Public Library in order to return and pick up many books for ourselves but mainly for Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead. We would go to the library, which at that time had a large shelf and several carts filled with books that had been donated to the library or that the library was offering for sale. I am not sure who the kind soul was that happened to donate so many different copies of A Guide Book of United States Coins by R. S. Yeoman but every time we would find a copy of this red book for sale, Marion would purchase it for me. Marion, upon our return home, opened up one of those red books and wrote me a sweet note, calling me by my nickname and telling me how much she loved me. I still have all of those books. An excellent cook herself, she would purchase copies of Cooking Light or Taste Of Home Magazine for herself to try her hand at cooking new types of dishes. While at the library, we would also take a look at the current edition of Coinage magazine and while she was off selecting the audio books to bring home to Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead, I would go to the reference section right next to the audio books and browse the copy of a book on die errors on the lincoln cent. After checking out, we would place our haul in a baby stroller to push everything home in as we often times checked out many more books than we could carry even a short distance home by ourselves.
Sometimes, we would visit the Polk Museum Of Art, which is located right next to the Lakeland Public Library and in one instance, we had our caricatures drawn there.
Other times we would go into the Stop & Shop by the library and purchase a couple of drinks or to pick up a loaf or two of bread which we would use to feed the swans at the lake, as Lake Morton is a Swan Sanctuary. Those swans were beautiful and one year, a group of students from the local college created swan sculptures to place around Lakeland. One of these swans was designed as a lifeguard and was placed right out on Lake Morton in front of where we were living so I got to see it every time I was staying with her.
Marion used to collect coins and stamps with me while we were together and she would often take me to visit Hauser's Coin Shop on South Florida Avenue where we would select coins for our albums. State quarters were quite popular to collect but we would also pick out mercury dimes, lincoln cents (Wheat pennies as we called them.), Liberty head nickels, walking Liberty dollars and much more. She always encouraged my hobbies and supported me in doing anything I wanted to do.
It was during October of 2003 when Marion was so sickly one day that she called and told Susie to get me to stay and care for Granny, Katherine Elizabeth Doss Mead, so she could go to the hospital with Susie. Marion never complained about anything although we could all see she was in pain but would never see a doctor because she always said there was nothing they could do for her, so when that happened we knew something was really wrong. She was diagnosed with cancer, which had spread all over and that while they could operate on some of it, they only gave her three months to live.
Marion Nancy Mead passed away on January 24th of 2004, the birthday of her daughter, after a final battle with cancer.
Edit : 17 Jul 2023 Find-A-Grave Member 47291409 would like it known that "Not contacting to say anything to you but would like my mom's real life story to be told as it really was. She worked and retired from the Go Burger on Washington and 45th in Amarillo, Tx. She was never in the armed forces ever.".
Edit : 17 July 2023 The National Archives Fire of 1973 resulted in the loss of military records for 80% of all persons discharged from the Army between 01 November 1912 - 01 January 1960, as well as those in the Air Force discharged between 25 September 1947 - 01 January 1967 with names in alphabetical order after Hubbard, James E.. Having sent away to the National Archives for a copy of Marion's service records, a reply was received that hers were among those lost, along with a request to send any available documentation so that her service file may be reconstructed. Little was known about Marion's life prior to 1971. Marion's mother served in The Salvation Army in Amarillo. After interviews with kin, over a decade of research, volunteer work, and the acquisition of a HAM radio license, recent discoveries have been made regarding Marion's early life by her granddaughter. The Salvation Army worked with the CDVs between the 1940's and 1970's before the responsibilities of the organization were transferred. Some CDVs served as members of the Armed Forces. This Author is now in possession of the uniform, as well as several awards earned for this work. Further research is ongoing. In hindsight, there were plenty of clues regarding her training in first aid. My grandmother once applied the now out of date first aid technique of using a paste of baking soda as a draw salve to remove a wasp stinger from my right knee as a child.
A brief history of Civil Defense in Amarillo :
With the dawn of the Atomic Age came the realization that the devastation caused by atomic, or hydrogen, bombs could be brought to bear against the United States. This resulted in the creation of Civil Defense. The purpose of this organization was to increase the emergency preparedness of the public before a crisis, so that they would be better equipped to help themselves until the government could provide relief. There were a number of positions within this organization, both official government employees, and civil volunteers. The activities of this organization came to a height around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Amarillo was once home to an Air Force Base, which was closed in 1968. Being the site of Pantex, to this day it is presumed to be high on the list of anticipated targets in an all out nuclear war, being of strategic importance as one of the few facilities for handling nuclear weapons. As the Cold War progressed, and nuclear weapons became more advanced, Civil Defense responsibilities were passed to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. Tragically, many Americans have come to believe that making any preparation for nuclear war is a futile effort due to Carl Sagan, who predicted a nuclear winter. The Soviets were quick to push this suggestion for propaganda purposes. Later tests and studies performed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have since discredited the idea of a nuclear winter. Please see the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny, freely available in PDF form online, for up to date information. In conversation with Marion during her lifetime, she did make mention of activities performed during and after WWII, including participation of the family in salvage activities. This makes sense, as Cheser and his father-in-law worked in construction, masonry, and bricklaying. Those fields not only required scarce tools, but were in demand during the boom period for shelter building. Cheser would later perform janitorial work for the Amarillo ISD. There was a national campaign regarding the building of fallout shelters, and schools constructed during this era were often designed and built specifically for use as fallout shelters. Some of the more elaborate Civil Defense plans identified some schools that were to be repurposed as 200 bed hospitals, to be resupplied after a period of time by the federal government after an attack. For more information see The Civil Defense Emergency Hospital government film. Virtually all public shelters were closed and repurposed after the order was given to destroy the spoiled rations during the 1970's, which consisted solely of some crackers, and a hard candy carbohydrate substitute. A great wealth of additional information is available online, which is more relevant than ever during this period of ongoing conflicts between nuclear powers.
