My
thanks to Chris, who used her genealogical investigative skills to find documents
relating to Marvin Dickson’s life and death. (I just have to get my own
Ancestry.com membership and quit imposing on my friends.) His death certificate
lists just a few basic facts, but even so it’s amazing how much I learned.
Marvin
Ross Dickson was born December 4, 1908, to Ida Mabel and James Benjamin (“Ben”)
Dickson. While his birthplace is listed as Orofino, it might still have been
Gilbert.
He
was married, the document affirms, but nothing else about his wife. However, their
marriage certificate shows her name was Lillian Soniville, and they married in
Centralia, WA, on June 4, 1932.
Marvin
was enlisted in the Reserve Corps as a Student Instructor (evidently a
civilian) with the Army Air Forces Central Instructor School, working out of
Randolph Field in Texas. He died at 3:45 p.m. on August 14, 1943, as the result
of an airplane crash. His name appears on a very long list of flyers who died
that horrible year of the war.
And
those are the facts – but just the facts. I’ll try to round Marvin out a bit
with what general information I know.
Marvin,
an only child, grew up on his parents’ homestead at Gilbert, Idaho, where he
attended the “Dickson School,” the local one-room schoolhouse, through the
eighth grade. Then, he was sent to town – either to Orofino or Lewiston – for
his high school education, which he completed in 1926 or so. After that he
attended the Normal School at Lewiston from which he graduated. (Thanks again
to Chris who found this entry in the 1928 Normal School annual.) I think he
would have been a good candidate for the teacher’s position at Kendrick because
of his farm-boy background, academic standing, musical talent, and energetic
attitude.
But
– though Marvin had skills and abilities, he was young and not yet ready for
the quiet life of a school teacher, and I wonder if he had the character for
it. In those days, remember, school teachers were expected to be paragons of
virtue. I would have thought that his stint in the penitentiary would have
ended his career as a teacher, but the 1940 census shows Marvin and Lillian still in
Centralia, where he was a teacher in the public schools. Perhaps it
was possible for him to move away from his problems and prove himself.
Well,
that attempt to defraud took some planning and effort. You just know it broke his parents' hearts and generally embarrassed the extended family. And then their hearts were broken again when Marvin was killed. But, we don't know -- hopefully he accomplished much better things. KW
3 comments:
Oh, that is so sad that he died so very young. Did he have children? Maybe you already said and I need to re-read.
No, Marvin and Lillian didn't have children. Yes, it is a sad story, but putting it in perspective, the war brought sadness and difficulties to people everywhere.
Chris researched Lillian, too. She moved to Spokane where she taught. Apparently she didn't remarry. She died in 1978 when she would have been about 70 and is buried at Normal Hill Cemetery in Lewiston.
It's been an interesting topic and you have more information than before, making Marvin and Lillian more real.
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