Person:Orval Pumphrey (1)

Reflections on Orval Pascal Pumphrey.

    Per daughter Lois, Orval's middle name, Pascal, was taken from a book, and was a name that his mother "Margy" liked. [Margy was pronounced with a hard G.]
     Orval & Maude were married by Orval's step-grandfather, the Rev. Joseph D. VanBriggle (grandmother Rebecca's husband).
     Orval's first car was a new Ford with side curtains (1917?). Lois remembers Orval, along with two or three friends in their cars, going to Indianapolis, with the top down to attend the 500 Race. Before the car they had a "Cozy Cab," and "Bob" was the carriage horse.
     Orval and Tip [brother] were always pulling jokes. One of the funniest, when Harold and Lois were over for dinner, probably shortly after they were married, Mom had laid bananas at each plate. Harold had gone to the phone, and Orval peeled Harold's banana, removed it, and put the skin back together to look like the original banana. Harold came back to the table and when he went to pick the banana up, the skin collapsed. Harold was stunned and surprised. "It got me; I didn't know what to think." Lois said that he turned red and it was one of the funniest times that she remembered.
     "I could always beat Frank (Orval's brother) in checkers, but never Orval." Per Harold T. Hawkins.
     Grandsons Phil and Don came to the house crying. They had been caught riding the sheep and Orval had whipped them with a rubber hose. He told Lois that it really hurt him to whip them. He had almost backed out of the decision; but that he had to because they had been told so many times not to (he had never whipped his children).
     Lois and Garnet liked to slide down the new straw stack (and later so did the grandchildren), but Dad wouldn't let them until after it had packed. They couldn't hardly wait for the rain to compact the straw.
     One time Dad (Orval) whipped the carriage horse "Bob" with a piece of bailing wire that he picked up out of the fence. Bob had picked up Garnet's goat by the back of the neck with his teeth and was holding it up in the air; the goat was bleating  baa-baa. After two or three whippings he put the goat down. Lois said that Dad would later state that Bob never picked up another goat. If Dad showed any anger it was with the foolishness of the animals, and that was not very often. 
     Orval, a Democrat, was elected Liberty Township Trustee 1934-38.He upset some of the party members that wanted teaching jobs. He told them that he hired teachers, not Democrats.
     Harold's sister Helen stayed at Orval's to help after grandson Don was born. This was just before the November elections in 1934, and Helen's father Harry, an ardent Republican, told her she better not vote for any Democrats.
     When her parents died, Maude received the larger of two Sharpsville properties (John Worden had loaned grandson Bob Siler money when he went to Canada and stole his son Bobby away from his mother).
     Wife Maude had "dropsy" (edema). Her death was due to heart failure.

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Excerpts from wife’s Dairy 1932 Sat 27 [Aug} “Mother made grape jelly (one qt & three glasses) and canned two qt.”

Dec 27 "Orval finished shucking [corn] this south field. Living on Trautman place. 1933 will make seven years."

1933 Apr 31 “Orval finished planting corn."

Jun 3 "Sat” "Phillip Ardeth son of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Hawkins arrived at 10::40 (P.M.) O clock weighing 9 lbs."

Jun 9 “Planted our late potatoes...."

Aug 26 & 27 “I attended the Century of Progress at Chicago."

Oct 12 "Orval finished sowing his wheat in South field. Thursday.”

Dec 8 “Orval has taken his mother a load of corn.”

1939 Apr 10 “Orval has gone to Kokomo to interview a housekeeper...”

Apr 14 “Orval, Olis & Garnet went to Kokomo to get wiring to put in some wall plugs”

Apr 28 “... Orval is plowing in the south field across the lane We Are Living on the J. E. Hawkins farm.” [crop sharing]

Jul 21 “Lois and children were here last three weeks in July going home July 29 Harold was in camp at Ky. for last two weeks. Jacquelyn learned to walk in her walker while here. And the boys took a swim in the ground feed. That was just one of many funny things they did. ha! ha!” .............................

    An entry at the end of Maude’s diary dated January 27, 1940, “Lois and kiddies moved from Springfield, O. here. Harold continued working at Robbins and Myers one week and went to Buffalo, N. Y. Feb. 3 to begin working for Curtis Wright.” 

    Census - 1940 Liberty Twp, Tipton Co., IN, Sheets 7-A&B, line # 38 my grandfather Orval Pascal Pumphrey, farming shares on my g-grandfather Jonas Hawkins' west farm, age 54. Line 39, living with him his daughter Lois Hawkins (Harold is working for Curtis Aircraft in Buffalo, NY). On sheet 7-B line # 41 are the children Phillip (me, age 6), Carlton [Carldon], and Jacquline [Jacquelyn].  Phillip Ardath Hawkins

    Harold returned from New York in early 1941 to Work with Delco Radio, and the family lived with Orval until the late summer of 1942 when they joined Harold in Colorado Springs, a battery commander with the 71st Army Division in training at Camp Carson. (WW II, he had been ordered to active duty in the early part of the year.)

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Wedding Announcement

    Mrs. Ina Woods, of Prairie, and Orval Pumphrey, near Sharpsville, were united in marriage Saturday morning at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ora Thomas, who performed the single ring ceremony before a bank of ferns.
    The attendants were Mrs. Harold Hawkins, of Colorado Springs, Colorado and Garnet Pumphrey, of Sharpsville, daughter and son of the bridegroom. Others witnessing the ceremony were Lieut. Hawkins, Mrs. Garnet Pumphrey and sons, Mrs. William Kelly and Mr. and Mrs. Olas Tyner and daughter, Charlotte, of Prairie. The couple will reside in Prairie township on the brides farm. [Hand dated by Lois Pumphrey Hawkins ‘10-3-42.’ Tipton Daily Tribune, 7 Oct 1942, p3.

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Obituary of Orval P. Pumphrey, Tipton Tribune, 11 March 1958 p.1.

Plan Pumphrey Rites Thursday

    Funeral services for Orval P. Pumphrey, 71, of route 1 west of Sharpsville, will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday from the Liberty Baptist Church, Prairie Township, with burial in Liberty Baptist Cemetery. Rev. Fanny Gentry and Rev. Harry Cubel will officiate. Friends may call at the Warner Funeral Home in Sharpsville after 6 p.m. Tuesday.
    Although in ill health for several years, the death came unexpectedly and was attributed to coronary heart attack.
    A farmer, Pumphrey had attended Prairie Township school, was a member of the Liberty Baptist Church and had served as a trustee in Liberty Township from 1934 until 1938. He was a democrat. Married to Maude Warden, who died in 1939, he remarried October 3, 1942, with Mrs. Ina Woods, who survives him as do the following children, Dona Pumphrey [see note], RI 2, Atlanta; Mrs. Harold Hawkins, Sharpsville; Mrs. Kenneth Reeder, Sharpsville. He is also survived by a brother, Clifford Pumphrey, Arrowsmith, Illinois, and 5 grandchildren, 3 great grandchildren and 1 step granddaughter, One brother and one sister preceded him in death.

(Notes: His son's name was Garnet Dale Pumphrey - Mrs. Kenneth Reeder was a step-daughter.)

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     Lois Hawkins (dau) was administrator of Oval's estate. Funeral services were provided by the Warner Funeral Home of Sharpsville at a cost of $1125.75. The estate was valued at $11,128.22, with Ina's portion being valued at $4348.40, Garnet's at $3371.91, and Lois' at $3371.91. Source: copies of documents filed with the court in Lois' files.
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Orval Pascal Pumphrey circa 1931, Tipton County, Indiana.

Orval Pascal Pumphrey, 1886-1958, Tipton County, Indiana, Tintype, 1910s

Orval Pascal Pumphrey in his Ford Model T Touring car about 1917.

Orval Paschal Pumphrey, April 1921, at the liberty Baptist Church, Prairie Township, Tipton County, Indiana.

Garnet Dale, Lois Arlene, and father Orval Paschal Pumphrey, probably 1940. At Orval's, west of Sharpsville, Tipton, Indiana.

Orval Pumphrey circa 1941.

Orval Pascal Pumphrey & Hawkins grandchildren, circa 1942, WW II.

Orval Pascal Pumphrey & Ina (Honeas) Wood, Prairie Twp., Tipton Co., IN, circa 1943.