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George Adkins
May 14, 1918 to October 29, 2002
George Brown Adkins died October 29, 2002 at his home on Beaverton Valley Road. He was 84 years young, but rarely admitted it and never believed it. He was the only son of George Blecker and Brownie (Bates) Adkins of Waverly, Tennessee. During the flu of 1918, his parents became ill and in 1920 he and his five sisters were orphaned. After five years in an orphanage, George was taken in by foster parents in Yell, Tennessee (near Crawly Ridge), but at the age of 12 he struck out on his own.
From 1930 to 1938, George survived by skills he had already acquired or would study to develop: cabinet making, farming, forestry, hunting, Golden Gloves boxing. He learned by reading with a flashlight after dark, by mastering how to measure with a square, by watching the checker players in the store and the knife swappers on the courthouse steps. He asked the old folks questions, and learned from their stories. And yes, he was a driver during Prohibition, and a National Guardsman during the terrible floods of the mid-1930s.
Somehow, by boxcar, bus and true grit, George wound up far away from the Nashville area, in Washington State, where a relative in Olympia taught him the upholstery trade. On a lark, he took a ferry to San Juan Island. Soon his days of sleeping in coal bins, cars, or under the fair grandstands came to an end. The island suited the young entrepreneur, who eventually prospered through enterprise, ingenuity and a zestful sense for survival. He worked endlessly at anything and everything: fixing cars, fishing, trapping, netting rabbits, raising livestock, building houses, making investments. At different times, he worked at the Roche Harbor lime kilns, at Todd Shipyard in Seattle, at Panorama City in Olympia. He even played cards and learned sax and drums to help earn a living. He was proud of his 40-year membership in the Masonic Lodge. He was also an accomplished marksman.
In 1976, George married Nancy Bergeson Roberson, and inherited as a dowry a large family which became part of a new, mutual love affair. Soon, camping trips to Tennessee, by vans and tents, then RV, became an annual event. Always, George was accompanied by pets. Over the years, he not only trained hunting and herding dogs, but considered every animal around a pet. His menagerie included his livestock of sheep, cattle, chickens, turkeys and pigs, and at various times pet lambs, goats, cats, ducks, banties, crows, doves, pigeons, pheasants, as well as horses, deer, raccoons, rabbits, fox, frogs, fish, one llama and always dogs. George got a kick out of people, old and young, and everyone he knew probably has been left with one leg longer than the other.
George will be hugely missed by family and friends. He was preceded in death by his parents, four sisters, first wife Doris and daughter Geodie. He is survived by his wife Nancy, son Bo, stepchildren Kim, Kerri, John, Jeff, Lisa, Lola and Andy and their families. Also by beloved grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, one sister, Phoebe, many in-laws, especially Tony, Gordie and Morris, and first cousin Colleen and her large and loving family back home in Tennessee.
Memorial services for George will be held from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, November 10, 2002 in the form of a lunch in the high school cafeteria, followed by eulogies, George stories and music. In lieu of flowers, please bring a memory, a thought, a picture. If written down, a reader will share them.
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