Edmonston, Marvin Wallace
Born 18May1921 in Minco, Oklahoma
Died 4:10AM on 23Feb2007 in room 301High Plains Regional Medical Center in Clovis, New Mexico
Cause of death listed as lung cancer, emphysema, related complications, and diabetes. His body was cremated and ashes were scattered on a deserted lot in St. Vrain, New Mexico where he and Mildred lived during the early 1940's. Later, a small amount of his ashes were gathered by his son and placed over his cemetery plot in Lawn Haven Cemetery in Clovis, New Mexico.
Social Security no. 525-36-0053
Married 8Feb1941 in Clovis, New Mexico
Wife: Goldie Mildred Whinery
Born 23Jan1920 in Evansville, Arkansas
Died
Social Security no.
Father: Elmer Ernest Whinery, born Morrow, Arkansas on 11Jun1895, died Lincoln, Arkansas December, 1963
Mother: Goldie Sophrona Galloway, born 2Dec1898, Died Lincoln Arkansas, 1972
Both buried in Bethesda Cemetery, Morrow, Arkansas along side of many of their relatives.
Children:
Ernest Ray Edmonston, born Clovis Memorial Hospital on 12Nov1942, married Roseanne Frances Iafonaro (born 5Jun44 in Cleveland, Ohio) in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 30Jul1967.
Linda Carolyn Edmonston, born Clovis Memorial Hospital on 1Jun1945, married Jimmy Lloyd Bentley (born 9Feb1934 in Ethridge, Tennessee)
Marvin Wallace Edmonston got his name from one of his Father's best friends, a man named Marvin Wallace. They had served together in the U. S. Army in France during WW I. Marvin's father had received lung damage from poison gas while in France and had to move from their home near Minco, Oklahoma when Marvin was very young. They settled in Muleshoe, Texas where they farmed and the climate was more suitable to Raymond's lung problems. After a few years in Muleshoe, their house burned down and they moved to a ½ section of property just SE of St. Vrain, New Mexico. Marvin's mother had a sister and brother-in-law in the St. Vrain area (Everett and Gertrude Downey) and it is very probable that they located the land to where they moved. Marvin attended the local schools, sometimes riding a horse back and forth until he finished the 8th grade. By this time the great depression was on and he worked on the farm and for other farmers helping the family survive. When he was fifteen years of age, he met Goldie Mildred Whinery who was staying with relatives in the area because her family had all but starved out of her native Arkansas. By the time Marvin was 20, he had moved to Clovis where he was working at a business that bought and sold eggs and milk along with dressing chickens. He was earning about a dollar a day, but had worked for less cutting broom corn, etc. He had known Mildred for about 5 years at that time and they decided to get married in February of 1941. About this time, a man from Melrose, New Mexico was able to get Marvin on with the AT&SF railway tamping ties for 38 cents an hour. Marvin and Mildred were afraid of all the pranks that were most likely in the making should they get married in St. Vrain or Melrose, so they went to a Justice of the Peace in Clovis and were married on February 8, 1941. It wasn't much longer until Marvin was promoted to the Bridge Gang and the railroad furnished living quarters, of a sort, that was actually a railroad car. From there, Marvin became a Locomotive Fireman and at his retirement after 40 years, was a Locomotive Engineer. Over the years, he had also spent a lot of time in the Switch Yards that were in Vaughn, New Mexico at that time.
Besides his railroad job, Marvin generally held another job of some sorts. He tried to help his father on the family farm until the drought of the early 1950's drove them out and Raymond died of cancer in 1956.
What farmland there was left was put in the soil bank, and Marvin's Mother, Mary Edmonston moved to Clovis. A garage on the property that held a lot of family belongings burned down about this time.
Marvin's Sister Blondie and her husband, Roy Roach, eventually ended up with the property and stayed there several years although it was not farmed again.
Marvin had gone back to Minco, Oklahoma in about 1938 to the old home place in an International pickup truck. He had brought back a few items of furniture, John Royce Edmonston's old civil war rifle, and a few other odds and ends. The garage fire burned most of these items except the old rifle which still resides with the family.
Marvin had been thrown from a horse when he was young and received a badly broken shoulder. The shoulder was operated on, but techniques not being what they later were, left him with a lifelong problem with it although he seldom mentioned it. Another time, he was on horseback chasing another horse while unknowingly having the mumps. The mumps went down on him and he was bed ridden for several weeks with swollen testicles. At some point, the removal of his testicles was being considered, but in time, he made a 100% recovery and fathered 3 children, the first being still born.
Because of the shoulder injury, Marvin was not accepted by the military during WW II. Also, the railroads and railroaders were considered vital to the nation's war effort, and very few railroaders with freight moving skills were drafted. One of Marvin's best friends was his brother-in-law Ernest Whinery who was drafted and saw action in North Africa and France. Another local boy, Lee Roach, who was to later become Marvin's brother-in-law, was drafted and sent to the Philippines where he was at when war broke out with Japan. Lee was captured on Bataan; saw the horrors of the Death March and several of the camps. Later in the war, he was transferred to Japan on one of the so called "death ships." Many of these ships were sunk by American submarines because the Japanese would not mark them as having POWs aboard. Lee lived to see liberation in 1945 where he eventually returned to the St. Vrain area and married Marvin's sister "Colie." Colie's twin sister, Blondie, married Lee's brother Roy, making their children double first cousins.
Marvin's oldest sister Beulah Mae, married Milton Moses, a member of the Air Force who was in New Mexico from his native North Dakota, and his 2nd Sister, Arlene, married a local man named Leroy Kilmer, who was also a railroader. Arlene's marriage to Leroy lasted about 20 years before they were divorced and Arlene later married Ray Burns. All the other couples lasted until death did them part. (Coalie and Blondie were twin sisters whose real names were Euna Rae and Eunice Faye).
Marvin and Mildred lived in several houses in the Clovis area. In about 1950, Mildred's father Elmer Whinery came to Clovis and helped Marvin build a home at 1607 Wallace Street where they lived for about 25 years when they moved to a nicer place at 324 Prairie View Dr., where they were living when Marvin died.
Marvin took to sanding hardwood floors in the 1950s with this Brother-in-law Lee Roach. There was a small construction boom going on in Clovis at the time and they had all the work they wanted. They also made a lot of trips to Friona and Bovina, Texas to sand floors. Marvin's son Ernest was a part of this when not in school and before joining the Marine Corps.
Marvin owned several types of campers and camper trailers through the years. He also owned a boat or two and would hit some of the local watering holes, but never strayed far from home. One of his favorite places was Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where he enjoyed the hot water baths there. They also made several trips back to Mildred's native Arkansas, but this more or less ended after her brother Ernest died in January of 1996.
Marvin would help his cousins who farmed whenever he could as he never lost the love of farming or farm type work. After retiring from the railroad he started exterminating prairie dogs. Prairie dogs were in great
abundance in the Clovis area and were considered pests by anyone owning land on which the varmints resided. He would charge so much a hole and would guarantee to exterminate the whole town providing he could get to them. They would "doctor" the prairie dog town and come back some time later to see if any of the pests had survived. It got to where Marvin couldn't find anyone to help him and Mildred tried to help whenever she could.
Other than work, Marvin didn't have much in the way of hobbies. He did enjoy collecting and working on old telephones and clocks, of which he owned several. He always seemed to keep himself busy by "tinkering" with something in his garage. Marvin belonged to the National Rifle Association off and on and did have a few guns that he enjoyed target shooting with on occasion.
Marvin was a little shorter than average, about 5" 9" and he often attributed this to his starting smoking when he was about 14 years old. He continued to smoke cigarettes until about the age of 65. However, as soon as he quit smoking, he went to chewing tobacco and did so until he died. In his belongings we retrieved from the hospital after he died was a package of chewing tobacco. He knew full well that tobacco could kill him, and probably was, but just couldn't or didn't want to give it up. At 85 years old, it was probably too late anyway.
Marvin was still mowing his own lawns, etc. until he was 85 years of age. The last summer he was alive he discovered that he had cancer. He took radiation treatments hoping to live a few more months, but died about a month after completing the treatments. He had gone to the hospital to have fluid drained from his left lung and had even sneaked a package of chewing tobacco into the hospital with him. He ate lunch in a hospital room and seemed to be doing fairly well, but in just a few minutes after eating was taken to the Intensive Care Unit. He told one of his nephews that he wouldn't live through the night, but some of the fluid was drained from his lung and pressure from around the lung was relieved and he was alive the next morning. He was moved to a room on the surgical floor where he started receiving morpheme. He rested fairly comfortable until the next morning when the dosage of morpheme was doubled. He died the following morning in the presence of his wife, daughter, sister Blondie, and brother-in-law Roy Roach. Several other family members had been in and out. His Wife and Daughter-in-law had spent the night with him the previous night. His son Ernest was suffering from a very bad cold and lack of sleep and had gone to bed about four hours before he died.
Marvin was wearing a railroad approved Seiko wrist watch when he died, one that he had owned for over 25 years. Mildred removed the watch when he died and gave it to me (Ernest). I noticed that it had stopped about an hour after he died. I put it in my shirt pocket and later noticed that it was running again, and did run until I gave it to my daughter Marla about a week later. Several months later she reported that it was still running.
Marvin was cremated at his request and his services were held at the 5th Street Baptist Church in Clovis on March 3rd, 2007 with the Rev. Roy Roach (his brother-in-law) officiating.
Marvin was an extremely honest man. If he ever lied to anybody, I (his son, Ernest) never knew about it. He was the kind of person that would walk a great distance just to pay a debt if he ever had one. This was not unusual in respect to how he was raised, but was unusual in the times in which he lived.
Born 18May1921 in Minco, Oklahoma
Died 4:10AM on 23Feb2007 in room 301High Plains Regional Medical Center in Clovis, New Mexico
Cause of death listed as lung cancer, emphysema, related complications, and diabetes. His body was cremated and ashes were scattered on a deserted lot in St. Vrain, New Mexico where he and Mildred lived during the early 1940's. Later, a small amount of his ashes were gathered by his son and placed over his cemetery plot in Lawn Haven Cemetery in Clovis, New Mexico.
Social Security no. 525-36-0053
Married 8Feb1941 in Clovis, New Mexico
Wife: Goldie Mildred Whinery
Born 23Jan1920 in Evansville, Arkansas
Died
Social Security no.
Father: Elmer Ernest Whinery, born Morrow, Arkansas on 11Jun1895, died Lincoln, Arkansas December, 1963
Mother: Goldie Sophrona Galloway, born 2Dec1898, Died Lincoln Arkansas, 1972
Both buried in Bethesda Cemetery, Morrow, Arkansas along side of many of their relatives.
Children:
Ernest Ray Edmonston, born Clovis Memorial Hospital on 12Nov1942, married Roseanne Frances Iafonaro (born 5Jun44 in Cleveland, Ohio) in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 30Jul1967.
Linda Carolyn Edmonston, born Clovis Memorial Hospital on 1Jun1945, married Jimmy Lloyd Bentley (born 9Feb1934 in Ethridge, Tennessee)
Marvin Wallace Edmonston got his name from one of his Father's best friends, a man named Marvin Wallace. They had served together in the U. S. Army in France during WW I. Marvin's father had received lung damage from poison gas while in France and had to move from their home near Minco, Oklahoma when Marvin was very young. They settled in Muleshoe, Texas where they farmed and the climate was more suitable to Raymond's lung problems. After a few years in Muleshoe, their house burned down and they moved to a ½ section of property just SE of St. Vrain, New Mexico. Marvin's mother had a sister and brother-in-law in the St. Vrain area (Everett and Gertrude Downey) and it is very probable that they located the land to where they moved. Marvin attended the local schools, sometimes riding a horse back and forth until he finished the 8th grade. By this time the great depression was on and he worked on the farm and for other farmers helping the family survive. When he was fifteen years of age, he met Goldie Mildred Whinery who was staying with relatives in the area because her family had all but starved out of her native Arkansas. By the time Marvin was 20, he had moved to Clovis where he was working at a business that bought and sold eggs and milk along with dressing chickens. He was earning about a dollar a day, but had worked for less cutting broom corn, etc. He had known Mildred for about 5 years at that time and they decided to get married in February of 1941. About this time, a man from Melrose, New Mexico was able to get Marvin on with the AT&SF railway tamping ties for 38 cents an hour. Marvin and Mildred were afraid of all the pranks that were most likely in the making should they get married in St. Vrain or Melrose, so they went to a Justice of the Peace in Clovis and were married on February 8, 1941. It wasn't much longer until Marvin was promoted to the Bridge Gang and the railroad furnished living quarters, of a sort, that was actually a railroad car. From there, Marvin became a Locomotive Fireman and at his retirement after 40 years, was a Locomotive Engineer. Over the years, he had also spent a lot of time in the Switch Yards that were in Vaughn, New Mexico at that time.
Besides his railroad job, Marvin generally held another job of some sorts. He tried to help his father on the family farm until the drought of the early 1950's drove them out and Raymond died of cancer in 1956.
What farmland there was left was put in the soil bank, and Marvin's Mother, Mary Edmonston moved to Clovis. A garage on the property that held a lot of family belongings burned down about this time.
Marvin's Sister Blondie and her husband, Roy Roach, eventually ended up with the property and stayed there several years although it was not farmed again.
Marvin had gone back to Minco, Oklahoma in about 1938 to the old home place in an International pickup truck. He had brought back a few items of furniture, John Royce Edmonston's old civil war rifle, and a few other odds and ends. The garage fire burned most of these items except the old rifle which still resides with the family.
Marvin had been thrown from a horse when he was young and received a badly broken shoulder. The shoulder was operated on, but techniques not being what they later were, left him with a lifelong problem with it although he seldom mentioned it. Another time, he was on horseback chasing another horse while unknowingly having the mumps. The mumps went down on him and he was bed ridden for several weeks with swollen testicles. At some point, the removal of his testicles was being considered, but in time, he made a 100% recovery and fathered 3 children, the first being still born.
Because of the shoulder injury, Marvin was not accepted by the military during WW II. Also, the railroads and railroaders were considered vital to the nation's war effort, and very few railroaders with freight moving skills were drafted. One of Marvin's best friends was his brother-in-law Ernest Whinery who was drafted and saw action in North Africa and France. Another local boy, Lee Roach, who was to later become Marvin's brother-in-law, was drafted and sent to the Philippines where he was at when war broke out with Japan. Lee was captured on Bataan; saw the horrors of the Death March and several of the camps. Later in the war, he was transferred to Japan on one of the so called "death ships." Many of these ships were sunk by American submarines because the Japanese would not mark them as having POWs aboard. Lee lived to see liberation in 1945 where he eventually returned to the St. Vrain area and married Marvin's sister "Colie." Colie's twin sister, Blondie, married Lee's brother Roy, making their children double first cousins.
Marvin's oldest sister Beulah Mae, married Milton Moses, a member of the Air Force who was in New Mexico from his native North Dakota, and his 2nd Sister, Arlene, married a local man named Leroy Kilmer, who was also a railroader. Arlene's marriage to Leroy lasted about 20 years before they were divorced and Arlene later married Ray Burns. All the other couples lasted until death did them part. (Coalie and Blondie were twin sisters whose real names were Euna Rae and Eunice Faye).
Marvin and Mildred lived in several houses in the Clovis area. In about 1950, Mildred's father Elmer Whinery came to Clovis and helped Marvin build a home at 1607 Wallace Street where they lived for about 25 years when they moved to a nicer place at 324 Prairie View Dr., where they were living when Marvin died.
Marvin took to sanding hardwood floors in the 1950s with this Brother-in-law Lee Roach. There was a small construction boom going on in Clovis at the time and they had all the work they wanted. They also made a lot of trips to Friona and Bovina, Texas to sand floors. Marvin's son Ernest was a part of this when not in school and before joining the Marine Corps.
Marvin owned several types of campers and camper trailers through the years. He also owned a boat or two and would hit some of the local watering holes, but never strayed far from home. One of his favorite places was Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where he enjoyed the hot water baths there. They also made several trips back to Mildred's native Arkansas, but this more or less ended after her brother Ernest died in January of 1996.
Marvin would help his cousins who farmed whenever he could as he never lost the love of farming or farm type work. After retiring from the railroad he started exterminating prairie dogs. Prairie dogs were in great
abundance in the Clovis area and were considered pests by anyone owning land on which the varmints resided. He would charge so much a hole and would guarantee to exterminate the whole town providing he could get to them. They would "doctor" the prairie dog town and come back some time later to see if any of the pests had survived. It got to where Marvin couldn't find anyone to help him and Mildred tried to help whenever she could.
Other than work, Marvin didn't have much in the way of hobbies. He did enjoy collecting and working on old telephones and clocks, of which he owned several. He always seemed to keep himself busy by "tinkering" with something in his garage. Marvin belonged to the National Rifle Association off and on and did have a few guns that he enjoyed target shooting with on occasion.
Marvin was a little shorter than average, about 5" 9" and he often attributed this to his starting smoking when he was about 14 years old. He continued to smoke cigarettes until about the age of 65. However, as soon as he quit smoking, he went to chewing tobacco and did so until he died. In his belongings we retrieved from the hospital after he died was a package of chewing tobacco. He knew full well that tobacco could kill him, and probably was, but just couldn't or didn't want to give it up. At 85 years old, it was probably too late anyway.
Marvin was still mowing his own lawns, etc. until he was 85 years of age. The last summer he was alive he discovered that he had cancer. He took radiation treatments hoping to live a few more months, but died about a month after completing the treatments. He had gone to the hospital to have fluid drained from his left lung and had even sneaked a package of chewing tobacco into the hospital with him. He ate lunch in a hospital room and seemed to be doing fairly well, but in just a few minutes after eating was taken to the Intensive Care Unit. He told one of his nephews that he wouldn't live through the night, but some of the fluid was drained from his lung and pressure from around the lung was relieved and he was alive the next morning. He was moved to a room on the surgical floor where he started receiving morpheme. He rested fairly comfortable until the next morning when the dosage of morpheme was doubled. He died the following morning in the presence of his wife, daughter, sister Blondie, and brother-in-law Roy Roach. Several other family members had been in and out. His Wife and Daughter-in-law had spent the night with him the previous night. His son Ernest was suffering from a very bad cold and lack of sleep and had gone to bed about four hours before he died.
Marvin was wearing a railroad approved Seiko wrist watch when he died, one that he had owned for over 25 years. Mildred removed the watch when he died and gave it to me (Ernest). I noticed that it had stopped about an hour after he died. I put it in my shirt pocket and later noticed that it was running again, and did run until I gave it to my daughter Marla about a week later. Several months later she reported that it was still running.
Marvin was cremated at his request and his services were held at the 5th Street Baptist Church in Clovis on March 3rd, 2007 with the Rev. Roy Roach (his brother-in-law) officiating.
Marvin was an extremely honest man. If he ever lied to anybody, I (his son, Ernest) never knew about it. He was the kind of person that would walk a great distance just to pay a debt if he ever had one. This was not unusual in respect to how he was raised, but was unusual in the times in which he lived.
Edmonston, Marvin Wallace
Born 18May1921 in Minco, Oklahoma
Died 4:10AM on 23Feb2007 in room 301High Plains Regional Medical Center in Clovis, New Mexico
Cause of death listed as lung cancer, emphysema, related complications, and diabetes. His body was cremated and ashes were scattered on a deserted lot in St. Vrain, New Mexico where he and Mildred lived during the early 1940's. Later, a small amount of his ashes were gathered by his son and placed over his cemetery plot in Lawn Haven Cemetery in Clovis, New Mexico.
Social Security no. 525-36-0053
Married 8Feb1941 in Clovis, New Mexico
Wife: Goldie Mildred Whinery
Born 23Jan1920 in Evansville, Arkansas
Died
Social Security no.
Father: Elmer Ernest Whinery, born Morrow, Arkansas on 11Jun1895, died Lincoln, Arkansas December, 1963
Mother: Goldie Sophrona Galloway, born 2Dec1898, Died Lincoln Arkansas, 1972
Both buried in Bethesda Cemetery, Morrow, Arkansas along side of many of their relatives.
Children:
Ernest Ray Edmonston, born Clovis Memorial Hospital on 12Nov1942, married Roseanne Frances Iafonaro (born 5Jun44 in Cleveland, Ohio) in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 30Jul1967.
Linda Carolyn Edmonston, born Clovis Memorial Hospital on 1Jun1945, married Jimmy Lloyd Bentley (born 9Feb1934 in Ethridge, Tennessee)
Marvin Wallace Edmonston got his name from one of his Father's best friends, a man named Marvin Wallace. They had served together in the U. S. Army in France during WW I. Marvin's father had received lung damage from poison gas while in France and had to move from their home near Minco, Oklahoma when Marvin was very young. They settled in Muleshoe, Texas where they farmed and the climate was more suitable to Raymond's lung problems. After a few years in Muleshoe, their house burned down and they moved to a ½ section of property just SE of St. Vrain, New Mexico. Marvin's mother had a sister and brother-in-law in the St. Vrain area (Everett and Gertrude Downey) and it is very probable that they located the land to where they moved. Marvin attended the local schools, sometimes riding a horse back and forth until he finished the 8th grade. By this time the great depression was on and he worked on the farm and for other farmers helping the family survive. When he was fifteen years of age, he met Goldie Mildred Whinery who was staying with relatives in the area because her family had all but starved out of her native Arkansas. By the time Marvin was 20, he had moved to Clovis where he was working at a business that bought and sold eggs and milk along with dressing chickens. He was earning about a dollar a day, but had worked for less cutting broom corn, etc. He had known Mildred for about 5 years at that time and they decided to get married in February of 1941. About this time, a man from Melrose, New Mexico was able to get Marvin on with the AT&SF railway tamping ties for 38 cents an hour. Marvin and Mildred were afraid of all the pranks that were most likely in the making should they get married in St. Vrain or Melrose, so they went to a Justice of the Peace in Clovis and were married on February 8, 1941. It wasn't much longer until Marvin was promoted to the Bridge Gang and the railroad furnished living quarters, of a sort, that was actually a railroad car. From there, Marvin became a Locomotive Fireman and at his retirement after 40 years, was a Locomotive Engineer. Over the years, he had also spent a lot of time in the Switch Yards that were in Vaughn, New Mexico at that time.
Besides his railroad job, Marvin generally held another job of some sorts. He tried to help his father on the family farm until the drought of the early 1950's drove them out and Raymond died of cancer in 1956.
What farmland there was left was put in the soil bank, and Marvin's Mother, Mary Edmonston moved to Clovis. A garage on the property that held a lot of family belongings burned down about this time.
Marvin's Sister Blondie and her husband, Roy Roach, eventually ended up with the property and stayed there several years although it was not farmed again.
Marvin had gone back to Minco, Oklahoma in about 1938 to the old home place in an International pickup truck. He had brought back a few items of furniture, John Royce Edmonston's old civil war rifle, and a few other odds and ends. The garage fire burned most of these items except the old rifle which still resides with the family.
Marvin had been thrown from a horse when he was young and received a badly broken shoulder. The shoulder was operated on, but techniques not being what they later were, left him with a lifelong problem with it although he seldom mentioned it. Another time, he was on horseback chasing another horse while unknowingly having the mumps. The mumps went down on him and he was bed ridden for several weeks with swollen testicles. At some point, the removal of his testicles was being considered, but in time, he made a 100% recovery and fathered 3 children, the first being still born.
Because of the shoulder injury, Marvin was not accepted by the military during WW II. Also, the railroads and railroaders were considered vital to the nation's war effort, and very few railroaders with freight moving skills were drafted. One of Marvin's best friends was his brother-in-law Ernest Whinery who was drafted and saw action in North Africa and France. Another local boy, Lee Roach, who was to later become Marvin's brother-in-law, was drafted and sent to the Philippines where he was at when war broke out with Japan. Lee was captured on Bataan; saw the horrors of the Death March and several of the camps. Later in the war, he was transferred to Japan on one of the so called "death ships." Many of these ships were sunk by American submarines because the Japanese would not mark them as having POWs aboard. Lee lived to see liberation in 1945 where he eventually returned to the St. Vrain area and married Marvin's sister "Colie." Colie's twin sister, Blondie, married Lee's brother Roy, making their children double first cousins.
Marvin's oldest sister Beulah Mae, married Milton Moses, a member of the Air Force who was in New Mexico from his native North Dakota, and his 2nd Sister, Arlene, married a local man named Leroy Kilmer, who was also a railroader. Arlene's marriage to Leroy lasted about 20 years before they were divorced and Arlene later married Ray Burns. All the other couples lasted until death did them part. (Coalie and Blondie were twin sisters whose real names were Euna Rae and Eunice Faye).
Marvin and Mildred lived in several houses in the Clovis area. In about 1950, Mildred's father Elmer Whinery came to Clovis and helped Marvin build a home at 1607 Wallace Street where they lived for about 25 years when they moved to a nicer place at 324 Prairie View Dr., where they were living when Marvin died.
Marvin took to sanding hardwood floors in the 1950s with this Brother-in-law Lee Roach. There was a small construction boom going on in Clovis at the time and they had all the work they wanted. They also made a lot of trips to Friona and Bovina, Texas to sand floors. Marvin's son Ernest was a part of this when not in school and before joining the Marine Corps.
Marvin owned several types of campers and camper trailers through the years. He also owned a boat or two and would hit some of the local watering holes, but never strayed far from home. One of his favorite places was Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where he enjoyed the hot water baths there. They also made several trips back to Mildred's native Arkansas, but this more or less ended after her brother Ernest died in January of 1996.
Marvin would help his cousins who farmed whenever he could as he never lost the love of farming or farm type work. After retiring from the railroad he started exterminating prairie dogs. Prairie dogs were in great
abundance in the Clovis area and were considered pests by anyone owning land on which the varmints resided. He would charge so much a hole and would guarantee to exterminate the whole town providing he could get to them. They would "doctor" the prairie dog town and come back some time later to see if any of the pests had survived. It got to where Marvin couldn't find anyone to help him and Mildred tried to help whenever she could.
Other than work, Marvin didn't have much in the way of hobbies. He did enjoy collecting and working on old telephones and clocks, of which he owned several. He always seemed to keep himself busy by "tinkering" with something in his garage. Marvin belonged to the National Rifle Association off and on and did have a few guns that he enjoyed target shooting with on occasion.
Marvin was a little shorter than average, about 5" 9" and he often attributed this to his starting smoking when he was about 14 years old. He continued to smoke cigarettes until about the age of 65. However, as soon as he quit smoking, he went to chewing tobacco and did so until he died. In his belongings we retrieved from the hospital after he died was a package of chewing tobacco. He knew full well that tobacco could kill him, and probably was, but just couldn't or didn't want to give it up. At 85 years old, it was probably too late anyway.
Marvin was still mowing his own lawns, etc. until he was 85 years of age. The last summer he was alive he discovered that he had cancer. He took radiation treatments hoping to live a few more months, but died about a month after completing the treatments. He had gone to the hospital to have fluid drained from his left lung and had even sneaked a package of chewing tobacco into the hospital with him. He ate lunch in a hospital room and seemed to be doing fairly well, but in just a few minutes after eating was taken to the Intensive Care Unit. He told one of his nephews that he wouldn't live through the night, but some of the fluid was drained from his lung and pressure from around the lung was relieved and he was alive the next morning. He was moved to a room on the surgical floor where he started receiving morpheme. He rested fairly comfortable until the next morning when the dosage of morpheme was doubled. He died the following morning in the presence of his wife, daughter, sister Blondie, and brother-in-law Roy Roach. Several other family members had been in and out. His Wife and Daughter-in-law had spent the night with him the previous night. His son Ernest was suffering from a very bad cold and lack of sleep and had gone to bed about four hours before he died.
Marvin was wearing a railroad approved Seiko wrist watch when he died, one that he had owned for over 25 years. Mildred removed the watch when he died and gave it to me (Ernest). I noticed that it had stopped about an hour after he died. I put it in my shirt pocket and later noticed that it was running again, and did run until I gave it to my daughter Marla about a week later. Several months later she reported that it was still running.
Marvin was cremated at his request and his services were held at the 5th Street Baptist Church in Clovis on March 3rd, 2007 with the Rev. Roy Roach (his brother-in-law) officiating.
Marvin was an extremely honest man. If he ever lied to anybody, I (his son, Ernest) never knew about it. He was the kind of person that would walk a great distance just to pay a debt if he ever had one. This was not unusual in respect to how he was raised, but was unusual in the times in which he lived.
Born 18May1921 in Minco, Oklahoma
Died 4:10AM on 23Feb2007 in room 301High Plains Regional Medical Center in Clovis, New Mexico
Cause of death listed as lung cancer, emphysema, related complications, and diabetes. His body was cremated and ashes were scattered on a deserted lot in St. Vrain, New Mexico where he and Mildred lived during the early 1940's. Later, a small amount of his ashes were gathered by his son and placed over his cemetery plot in Lawn Haven Cemetery in Clovis, New Mexico.
Social Security no. 525-36-0053
Married 8Feb1941 in Clovis, New Mexico
Wife: Goldie Mildred Whinery
Born 23Jan1920 in Evansville, Arkansas
Died
Social Security no.
Father: Elmer Ernest Whinery, born Morrow, Arkansas on 11Jun1895, died Lincoln, Arkansas December, 1963
Mother: Goldie Sophrona Galloway, born 2Dec1898, Died Lincoln Arkansas, 1972
Both buried in Bethesda Cemetery, Morrow, Arkansas along side of many of their relatives.
Children:
Ernest Ray Edmonston, born Clovis Memorial Hospital on 12Nov1942, married Roseanne Frances Iafonaro (born 5Jun44 in Cleveland, Ohio) in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 30Jul1967.
Linda Carolyn Edmonston, born Clovis Memorial Hospital on 1Jun1945, married Jimmy Lloyd Bentley (born 9Feb1934 in Ethridge, Tennessee)
Marvin Wallace Edmonston got his name from one of his Father's best friends, a man named Marvin Wallace. They had served together in the U. S. Army in France during WW I. Marvin's father had received lung damage from poison gas while in France and had to move from their home near Minco, Oklahoma when Marvin was very young. They settled in Muleshoe, Texas where they farmed and the climate was more suitable to Raymond's lung problems. After a few years in Muleshoe, their house burned down and they moved to a ½ section of property just SE of St. Vrain, New Mexico. Marvin's mother had a sister and brother-in-law in the St. Vrain area (Everett and Gertrude Downey) and it is very probable that they located the land to where they moved. Marvin attended the local schools, sometimes riding a horse back and forth until he finished the 8th grade. By this time the great depression was on and he worked on the farm and for other farmers helping the family survive. When he was fifteen years of age, he met Goldie Mildred Whinery who was staying with relatives in the area because her family had all but starved out of her native Arkansas. By the time Marvin was 20, he had moved to Clovis where he was working at a business that bought and sold eggs and milk along with dressing chickens. He was earning about a dollar a day, but had worked for less cutting broom corn, etc. He had known Mildred for about 5 years at that time and they decided to get married in February of 1941. About this time, a man from Melrose, New Mexico was able to get Marvin on with the AT&SF railway tamping ties for 38 cents an hour. Marvin and Mildred were afraid of all the pranks that were most likely in the making should they get married in St. Vrain or Melrose, so they went to a Justice of the Peace in Clovis and were married on February 8, 1941. It wasn't much longer until Marvin was promoted to the Bridge Gang and the railroad furnished living quarters, of a sort, that was actually a railroad car. From there, Marvin became a Locomotive Fireman and at his retirement after 40 years, was a Locomotive Engineer. Over the years, he had also spent a lot of time in the Switch Yards that were in Vaughn, New Mexico at that time.
Besides his railroad job, Marvin generally held another job of some sorts. He tried to help his father on the family farm until the drought of the early 1950's drove them out and Raymond died of cancer in 1956.
What farmland there was left was put in the soil bank, and Marvin's Mother, Mary Edmonston moved to Clovis. A garage on the property that held a lot of family belongings burned down about this time.
Marvin's Sister Blondie and her husband, Roy Roach, eventually ended up with the property and stayed there several years although it was not farmed again.
Marvin had gone back to Minco, Oklahoma in about 1938 to the old home place in an International pickup truck. He had brought back a few items of furniture, John Royce Edmonston's old civil war rifle, and a few other odds and ends. The garage fire burned most of these items except the old rifle which still resides with the family.
Marvin had been thrown from a horse when he was young and received a badly broken shoulder. The shoulder was operated on, but techniques not being what they later were, left him with a lifelong problem with it although he seldom mentioned it. Another time, he was on horseback chasing another horse while unknowingly having the mumps. The mumps went down on him and he was bed ridden for several weeks with swollen testicles. At some point, the removal of his testicles was being considered, but in time, he made a 100% recovery and fathered 3 children, the first being still born.
Because of the shoulder injury, Marvin was not accepted by the military during WW II. Also, the railroads and railroaders were considered vital to the nation's war effort, and very few railroaders with freight moving skills were drafted. One of Marvin's best friends was his brother-in-law Ernest Whinery who was drafted and saw action in North Africa and France. Another local boy, Lee Roach, who was to later become Marvin's brother-in-law, was drafted and sent to the Philippines where he was at when war broke out with Japan. Lee was captured on Bataan; saw the horrors of the Death March and several of the camps. Later in the war, he was transferred to Japan on one of the so called "death ships." Many of these ships were sunk by American submarines because the Japanese would not mark them as having POWs aboard. Lee lived to see liberation in 1945 where he eventually returned to the St. Vrain area and married Marvin's sister "Colie." Colie's twin sister, Blondie, married Lee's brother Roy, making their children double first cousins.
Marvin's oldest sister Beulah Mae, married Milton Moses, a member of the Air Force who was in New Mexico from his native North Dakota, and his 2nd Sister, Arlene, married a local man named Leroy Kilmer, who was also a railroader. Arlene's marriage to Leroy lasted about 20 years before they were divorced and Arlene later married Ray Burns. All the other couples lasted until death did them part. (Coalie and Blondie were twin sisters whose real names were Euna Rae and Eunice Faye).
Marvin and Mildred lived in several houses in the Clovis area. In about 1950, Mildred's father Elmer Whinery came to Clovis and helped Marvin build a home at 1607 Wallace Street where they lived for about 25 years when they moved to a nicer place at 324 Prairie View Dr., where they were living when Marvin died.
Marvin took to sanding hardwood floors in the 1950s with this Brother-in-law Lee Roach. There was a small construction boom going on in Clovis at the time and they had all the work they wanted. They also made a lot of trips to Friona and Bovina, Texas to sand floors. Marvin's son Ernest was a part of this when not in school and before joining the Marine Corps.
Marvin owned several types of campers and camper trailers through the years. He also owned a boat or two and would hit some of the local watering holes, but never strayed far from home. One of his favorite places was Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where he enjoyed the hot water baths there. They also made several trips back to Mildred's native Arkansas, but this more or less ended after her brother Ernest died in January of 1996.
Marvin would help his cousins who farmed whenever he could as he never lost the love of farming or farm type work. After retiring from the railroad he started exterminating prairie dogs. Prairie dogs were in great
abundance in the Clovis area and were considered pests by anyone owning land on which the varmints resided. He would charge so much a hole and would guarantee to exterminate the whole town providing he could get to them. They would "doctor" the prairie dog town and come back some time later to see if any of the pests had survived. It got to where Marvin couldn't find anyone to help him and Mildred tried to help whenever she could.
Other than work, Marvin didn't have much in the way of hobbies. He did enjoy collecting and working on old telephones and clocks, of which he owned several. He always seemed to keep himself busy by "tinkering" with something in his garage. Marvin belonged to the National Rifle Association off and on and did have a few guns that he enjoyed target shooting with on occasion.
Marvin was a little shorter than average, about 5" 9" and he often attributed this to his starting smoking when he was about 14 years old. He continued to smoke cigarettes until about the age of 65. However, as soon as he quit smoking, he went to chewing tobacco and did so until he died. In his belongings we retrieved from the hospital after he died was a package of chewing tobacco. He knew full well that tobacco could kill him, and probably was, but just couldn't or didn't want to give it up. At 85 years old, it was probably too late anyway.
Marvin was still mowing his own lawns, etc. until he was 85 years of age. The last summer he was alive he discovered that he had cancer. He took radiation treatments hoping to live a few more months, but died about a month after completing the treatments. He had gone to the hospital to have fluid drained from his left lung and had even sneaked a package of chewing tobacco into the hospital with him. He ate lunch in a hospital room and seemed to be doing fairly well, but in just a few minutes after eating was taken to the Intensive Care Unit. He told one of his nephews that he wouldn't live through the night, but some of the fluid was drained from his lung and pressure from around the lung was relieved and he was alive the next morning. He was moved to a room on the surgical floor where he started receiving morpheme. He rested fairly comfortable until the next morning when the dosage of morpheme was doubled. He died the following morning in the presence of his wife, daughter, sister Blondie, and brother-in-law Roy Roach. Several other family members had been in and out. His Wife and Daughter-in-law had spent the night with him the previous night. His son Ernest was suffering from a very bad cold and lack of sleep and had gone to bed about four hours before he died.
Marvin was wearing a railroad approved Seiko wrist watch when he died, one that he had owned for over 25 years. Mildred removed the watch when he died and gave it to me (Ernest). I noticed that it had stopped about an hour after he died. I put it in my shirt pocket and later noticed that it was running again, and did run until I gave it to my daughter Marla about a week later. Several months later she reported that it was still running.
Marvin was cremated at his request and his services were held at the 5th Street Baptist Church in Clovis on March 3rd, 2007 with the Rev. Roy Roach (his brother-in-law) officiating.
Marvin was an extremely honest man. If he ever lied to anybody, I (his son, Ernest) never knew about it. He was the kind of person that would walk a great distance just to pay a debt if he ever had one. This was not unusual in respect to how he was raised, but was unusual in the times in which he lived.
Inscription
Marvin Edmonston
