Benjamin Arthur O'Barr
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He was a tall man with really long legs, big hands, long arms. When sitting together on a church pew, he was the same height as his wife, but his height was in his legs so when he stood, he towered over his wife.
In his late teens, his brother had died from drinking irrigation water. In memory of his brother, he wanted to finish the field and harvest the crop. During that time, he did not answer his draft notice so the Military Police came and dragged him off the watermelon field and sent him straight to boot camp. While in the army, he was stationed in Texas and was an excellent shot. He'd patrol the coast. There is a story of him shooting a pelican for some odd reason and had to provide a reason for the gunshot so he bent down and started a small brushfire so he could fire three shots to signify fire. He would have been deployed to Europe and most who were deployed to Europe died, but just before he was deployed he got the avian flu (one of the victims of the 1918-19 Influenza Epidemic) and was not deployed with the rest of his unit. Later he recovered from the flu. That probably saved his life because the way the war was fought in WWI was brutal with chemical weapons and huge artillery shells. It was mass slaughter for the soldiers. After returning from the war, while driving at night, a spooked horse ran into the middle of the road and he ran into it. He was able to make it back to his home, but when he came into the house, he comments to his mom, "Mom, my eye really hurts!" Unknown to him, his eye was hanging from his socket. The doctor could not save the eye so he had to be fitted with a false eye. It was not a round piece, but a plate expertly painted as an eye. He would take it out to show his grandkids. As a story goes, one night he was driving with his wife when they were pulled over by a police officer because of his poor depth perceptive. "Sir, have you been drinking?" "No sir, I don't drink." "Are you sure, your eyes are looking a bit glossy to me." So he popped out his eye and offered it to the officer, "Do you want a closer look?" He seemed to stay in good humor over the loss of his eye. Stories told by his grandson, Jason Benjamin Quist
Accounts told to him by his mother, Dianna Joy O'Barr Quist |