LEMON, William Hal "Bill" - b. November 3, 1911 - d. December 7, 2006

[genealogynut]

Winfield Daily Courier
Saturday, December 9, 2006

MOLINE- William Hal Lemon, 95, longtime resident of the Moline and Elk Falls area, died Dec. 7, 2006, at Elk Manor Nursing Home in Moline.

Services will be 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Elk Falls Cemetery.  The Rev. Sloan will officiate. Military honors will be conducted by the Fort Riley Honor Guard.

Friends may call at Zimmerman Funeral Home in Howard from 1 to 9 p.m. Monday.

A memorial has been established with Harry Hynes Memorial Hospice.  Contributions may be left with the funeral home.

Lemon was born on Nov. 3, 1900, in Cherokee, to W. Montgomery and Mary Marvin (Vanover) Lemon. He moved with his family to the Elk Falls community at an early age and graduated from Elk Falls High School in 1930.

On April 1, 1942, he entered the United States Army and served in the European Theatre during World War II.

On May 4, 1947, he married Alvina Julie "Trudy" Bentley at Elk Falls after meeting in her homeland of Germany  during the war.  They traveled and worked in 36 states, Mexico and Canada before returning to make their home in Moline in the early 1970's.

Lemon was employed in many occupations, but remained a cowboy and mule skinner throughout most of his life.

His wife, Trudy, died on Oct. 7, 1989.

In July 2003, he married Margery June (Blakely) Cunningham at Cedar Vale, and they made their home in Elk Falls.  Lemon has been a resident of the Elk Manor Nursing Home during the past few years.

He is survived by his wife, Margery Cunningham-Lemon, Elk Falls; his stepsons, Patrick Cunningham and Christopher Cunningham, both of ELk Falls, Michael Cunningham, Tulsa, and Kevin Cunningham, West Covina, Calif.; a stepdaughter, Therese Wilkinson, Sidney, Neb.; a half-sister, Bertha Morgan, Bartlesville, Okla., and several nieces and nephews.

[Janet Harrington]

(To add to Bill Lemon's obit, the following appeared in the Flint Hills Express on December 6, 2006, page 3)

Graveside services were held on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006, at 2 p.m. at the Elk Falls Cemetery with Rev. Ron Sloan officiating.  Military funeral honors were conducted by the Ft. Riley Honor Guard.  Bill requested to be buried in his World War II Army uniform, wearing his military service medals and placed in a casket made from Elk County wood, planed at the Elk Falls Sawmill.  A memorial has been established with the Harry Hynes Memorial Hospice.  Contributions may be left with the funeral home.  Funeral arrangements are being made with the Zimmerman Funeral Home of Howard.
...

(Taken from the News From Elk Falls, Flint Hills Express, Dec. 13, 2006, page 5, written by Gloria Jones-Wolf)

Over here in Elk Falls we are sad to lay one of our own to rest.  Bill Lemon, one of the last of a dying breed of old time cowboys, passed from this earth on December 7th, 2006.  At age 95, Bill had enjoyed a rich and interesting life, packing more into those 95 years than most folks would experience in twice that amount in time.  He was a true-blue Elk Falls boy, graduating from high school here in 1930.  He enlisted in the army the day after Pearl Harbor, so it is fitting that he died on Pearl Harbor Day.

There are hundreds of Bill Lemon stories, but one of the best is that 30 years ago he had a house fall on him.  Now, that's the way the story was told to me.  It could have been a cabin and not a house, but the result was that Bill was badly injured and thought he would soon die to his injuries.  It was then that he took his WWII uniform to Zimmerman Funeral Home in Howard, and asked that they  keep it for him because he'd liked to be buried in it. At the court hearing where Bill was given compensation for his injuries the judge told Bill he could have a lump sum of several thousand dollars or he could have a settlement of $1,200.00 per month for the rest of his life.  In his true humble fashion Bill said, "I wouldn't want to take more than is right, I'll take the $1,200.00 per month."  That decision paid off well for Bill.

I remember when Bill was 90 years old he asked my friend Edie Baker if he could cut some trees on her little farm.  He was going to build his own log cabin, he said.  Edie was worried when I stopped by one day.  She worried that Bill would go up there in her woods and let a tree fall on him and she would be responsible for this accident since she had given him permission to cut the logs on her land.  We talked it over and she decided that if Bill did get hit by a falling tree that he was doing what he wanted to be doing and that is what we would want for our 90th years.  Bill told Margery that he needed to build his cabin "before it's too late."  Bill got that cabin built.

On Tuesday at 2 p.m. Bill Lemon was laid to rest at the Elk Falls Cemetery, buried in that same WWII uniform that the funeral home had kept safe and moth free for all those 30 years.  There sure won't be another one like Bill.