Wilburn Laverne Smith

was born October 23, 1919, on the 120-acre family farm in Pearson, Arkansas, to Milton and Izorah Smith. He was the ninth of nine children. He grew up working the farm: plowing, planting corn and potatoes, and picking cotton. His family raised hogs and had their own smokehouse.Wilburn went to elementary school in Pearson, in a two-room schoolhouse, and went to high school in nearby Rosebud, Arkansas, where he played basketball. Before the Great Depression, the town of Pearson was booming, with a big cotton-gin, a post office, a grocery store and a dry-goods store. In November, 1929, the first hardship of the era was felt by the Smith family when 52-year-old Milton Smith died. Wilburn was ten years old. One of President Roosevelt's Depression-era programs was the NYA, the National Youth Administration. As an NYA member, Wilburn left home and school at the age of fifteen, and went to live in a military-style camp. He helped to build the City Hall in Heber Springs, Arkansas, and also the economics building at Quitman High School. He was also proud of having been in the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, another of the New Deal programs. He joined the corps in 1938, when he was nineteen years old. He built roads and government housing for visiting dignitaries in Clarksville, Arkansas. He met Bernice Trawick when he was nineteen and she was seventeen. One of their first dates was at a dance in a private home, where all the furniture was pushed back against the walls, the windows were opened, and three musicians played: a fiddler, a guitarist, and a banjo player. When Wilburn got a chance to go north to Michigan for a job in a steel mill, he began a letter-writing campaign to bring Bernice to Trenton, Michigan. She made it very clear that she would come, if marriage was his intent. It was.Wilburn and Bernice were married on November 22, 1941. Two weeks later, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Wilburn was inducted into the US Army a short time later. He went first to Fort Maxey, Texas. The history of the 102nd Infantry Division reads: "On Texas plains where dust and mud abounded...they learned soldiering from the bottom up. They learned to drill, to hike, to shoot, to hit the ground, to dig in, to bracket the enemy with big guns, to read maps, to build bridges and tank traps, to lay wire and mines." Wilburn was a sharpshooter, having had a lot of practice with rifles. He spent time training in England, and then was part of the second wave into France after D-Day. He entered France at Cherbourg on June 9, 1944, and spent a harrowing 165 days on the front lines.After V-E Day, he aided in reconstruction projects in Germany, was honorably discharged, and returned to his bride in 1946.Bernice had moved to Pinole, California, to be near her sister, Inez. Wilburn and Bernice built a house at 1485 Nob Hill Avenue, in 1950. Wilburn and Bernice had a daughter, Caroline. Wilburn worked for Pacific Gas and Electric Company as a machinist for thirty-six years. He operated a tapping machine, and helped to bring natural gas service to communities all over California. He retired in 1982, and addressed himself to one of his great passions: golf. Wilburn, who by this time, was known as "Wil," was a member of Contra Costa Golf and Country Club. He played golf at least three times a week until he was felled by a stroke in 2003. He moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington, in 2005, to be near Caroline and her family, and died at the Hospice Care Center in Bremerton, Washington, on February 19, 2011. He was ninety-one years old.Funeral services were held in the Pinole United Methodist Church, on February 28, 2011. He was laid to rest with full military honors in Rolling Hills Memorial Park, in Richmond, California.Wilburn L. Smith was preceded in death by his parents and his eight brothers and sisters. He is survived by his beloved wife, Bernice, his daughter Caroline, her husband Charles Cox, and his adored grandsons, Daniel and Michael Cox.