Typed as spelled and written - Lena Stone Criswell
THE DAILY DEMOCRAT
Sixty-Second Year - Number 212
Marlin, Texas, Thursday, December 20, 1962
EX-PUBLISHER'S BODY
ARRIVES
The body of George S. Buchanan, former owner and publisher of the Marlin Democrat newspapers who died of injuries received lat Monday in a traffice accident at Americus, Ga., arrived in Marlin Wednesday midnight, by funeral coach from Dallas and was taken to the Adams Funeral Home. The body will remain at the funeral until time for services there Sunday at 2 p.m., followed by Masonic rites at the graveside in Calvary Cemetery.
The body was flown from Atlanta, Ga., and arrived in Dallas, two hours later.
While no new word had been received in Marlin Thursday about the condition of Mrs. Buchanan, who was injured in the accident and who is a patient at the Americus-Smith County Hospital in Americus, many of the townspeople here were realizing more fully the community's loss in Mr. Buchanan's death.
Severl have told of help he extended them and their families in a variety of ways, and others have recalled various jobs and positions he held, some of which he felt very deeply about.
For example, he was one of the three oiriginal members of Local Draft Board No. 1, during World War II, appointed by District Judge John C. Patterson, who was then serving as (missing).
He served on the board until entering American Red Cross service in 1944. Mrs. John C. Patterson, who was a member of the other draft board in Marlin at that time and still is draft board clerk here, recalls that Mr. Buchanan served with the late Cecil Glass and the late George Olinger.
Draft board work then, she said, was nearly full time, and during that time, was a no-pay, voluntary type post.
Another position held by Mr. Buchanan, one he was proud to mention, was that of serving for several years as Falls County parole officer. Mrs. Dee Kelly, now at the Marlin County Club, worked as a secretary in the Chamber of Commerce office when Mr. Buchanan was manager of the Chamber. She was employed there from about 1936 or 1937 or 1941, and she said during all that time Mr. Buchanan also served as the county's parole officer, a post that now has been succeeded by an organization operating on a state-wide basis.
Another of his achievements that the former publisher took pride in was the big part he took in organizing Marlin's Bluebonnet Foto Fiesta. Under his management and direction, this annual spring event, no longer in existence, became a largely-attended affair that brought visitors from all over the state to the resort city.
Due to his fields of employment, Mr. Buchanan was widely known over the state. A priest visiting from Austin was in The Democrat office Wednesday and expressed his condolences. When the priest ws asked if he knew Mr. Buchanan or had heard of him said, "Who hadn't.
Mr. Buchanan could go to a meeting in a far part of the state and always find someone he knew. He once told this reporter about an incident that occurred several years ago in Los Angeles, Calif., where he and Mrs. Buchanan had gone by car for a vacation visit.
As they were driving there one day and as they approached a certain downtown intersection, Mr. Buchanan noticed an unusually large crowd congregated at the intersection. He realized a wreck or some other mishap had occured. Parking his car as near to the crowd as possible, he alighted and told his wife that he believed he could fine someone he knew in a crowd that big, even that far from home. And going into the crowd he found a Texan a man who lived a far distance from Marlin, but nonethless a man who was a business friend of the Marlinite.
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Copyright permission granted to Theresa Carhart and her volunteers for printing by
The Democrat, Marlin, Falls County, Texas.