Orville Webb

Article Last Updated; Saturday, October 17, 2009 12:01AM

Webb

Oxford resident Orville Webb died at his home after suffering a stroke Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009. He was 92.

Mr. Webb was born to Dorus and Vangie Winn Webb on June 28, 1917, in Chandler, Ariz. One of 10 children, he grew up working in his family’s dairies in Tucson and Mesa, Ariz. After high school, he served on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ireland and Alabama. After returning from his mission in 1942, he married LuRena Merrill in the Logan Temple in Utah.

Mr. Webb then joined the Army Air Corps, where he served stateside as a pilot and a trainer. He achieved the rank of second lieutenant.

When World War II ended, Mr. Webb left the service and moved his family to Farmington, where he and his brother Leslie started the Webb Brothers Dairy. Over the years, as Mr. Webb and his wife raised their nine children, they had several small businesses, and Mr. Webb had many side jobs.

He was a scoutmaster for many years and held various positions in the LDS church. In 1971, Mr. Webb lost his wife, LuRena, to cancer after 29 years of marriage. He later married Yvonne Ward and moved with his three youngest children to Oxford, where he ranched and drove a school bus for Durango School District 9-R. The marriage ended in divorce after five years.

Mr. Webb enjoyed a brief career on stage at the melodrama at the Abbey Theatre during the 1980s. He also attended Fort Lewis College, served as a chaperone for the Japan Exchange Program and made several trips to Japan.

In his 70s, he fell in love with Ruth Snyder. They spent 10 years together at her home in Bloomfield, N.M., where, his family said, she spoiled him, and he took her dancing almost every Saturday night. Mr. Webb was especially proud of his Senior Olympics blue ribbons in polka and Western two-step dancing.

After Snyder’s death from a stroke, Mr. Webb returned to the ranch at Oxford to be with the children and grandchildren still living there.

Mr. Webb’s family said he was a master storyteller and was most at home around a campfire in his beloved mountains, “transfixing his audience with absurd, outrageous and terrifying tales.” He could recite classical poetry from memory and knew the words to hundreds of songs.

“His quick wit, remarkable imagination and delightful sense of humor were evident to the last, despite his long struggle with Alzheimer’s,” his family wrote. “He faced his life and his death with cheerful courage and profound gratitude. He was proud of his family, and we were all terribly proud of him.”

His family said that he lived with one regret – “that he was never more than mediocre at croquet.”

Mr. Webb was preceded in death by his grandson Tyler Curtis Ash.

He is survived by his sons Farren Webb and Ed Webb, both of Oxford, Calvin Webb of Farmington, Glenn Webb of Longmont and Stan Webb of Bainbridge, Ga.; daughters Alice Webb of Oxford, Ruth Ash of Durango, Franceen Webb of Farmington and Joyce Kohler of Midway, Utah; 24 grandchildren; 34 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.

Visitation will be held from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009, at Hood Mortuary. A graveside service will take place at 11 a.m. Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Farmington. A celebration of life will be held after the graveside service at the Fraternal Order of Police Hall, a few blocks north of the cemetery on Santa Clara Avenue just off Mickey Drive.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent to Hospice of Mercy, 1 Mercado St., Suite 270, Durango, CO 81301.