Myrtle M. Duncan, Mentone
Myrtle M. Duncan, 83, a 17-year Mentone resident and a former 20-year Redlands resident, died May 17th, 1982Survivors include her four sons, Larry Duncan and William Duncan of Mentone, Harvey Duncan of Sacramento, and James Duncan of Denair; five daughters, Ella Bourland of Las Vegas, Nevada, Mildred Allen of Grand Terrace, Evelyn Hayhurst of Redlands, Marjorie Duncan of San Bernardino, and Ruth Tolladay of Reno, Nevada; a brother Morris Traughber of Dallas, Texas, a sister, Grace Bohannon of Sulphur Springs, Texas, 34 grandchildren and 50 great-grandchildren.
Services 10 a.m. Thursday in F. Arthur Cortner Chapel with Rev. Lee McClanathan of the Christain Church of Yucaipa officiating. Interment will be in Hillside Memorial Park.
Myrtle Duncan, 83, of Mentone, dies
Myrtle M. Duncan, a resident of Redlands and Mentone for 37 years, died in redlands Monday at the age of 83.A native of Sulphur Bluff, Texas, Duncan had lived for the past 17 years in Mentone, and was a member of the Assembly of God church.
She is survived by four sons, Harvey Duncan of Sacramento, Lawerence "Larry" Duncan and William Duncan, both of Mentone and James Duncan of Denair, Cal,; and five daughters, Ella Bourland of Las Vegas, Mildred Allen of Grand Terrace, Evelyn Hayhurst of Redlands, Marjorie Duncan of San Bernardino and Ruth Tolladay of Reno, Nev.
Other survivors include one brother, Morris traughber of Dallas; one sister Grace Bohannon of Sulphur Springs, Tex,; 34 grandchildren and 50 great grandchildren.
Services will be held 10 a.m. Thursday at the F. Arthur Cortner Chapel, with Rev. Lee McClanathan of the Christian Church of Yucaipa officiating. Interment will be in the Hillside Park Cemetery.
Grandma's Long White Hair
Grandma always kept a garden, no matter how many times she twisted an ankle stepping into a gopher hole, and at the end of the season, she put-up all she harvested.
Grandma May survived tornadoes as a child and the Great Depression - alone with 9 children to care for. Sometimes that meant picking cotton in the fields, totting my mom; Ruth along on a gunnysack behind her. Through it all, she managed to keep herself going. Perhaps, out of neccessity, May depended on her children to share the load and the decisions. Still, it made them strong, sensible.
Grandma May, a prominent member of the Assembly of God church, read the bible from cover to cover a number of times in her life. She could recite stories from the script word for word.
One day, when I was quite young, and after she had told the grandchildren a story; I asked her what love is?. She paused to think, looking down and then toward me. I remember her voice was soft and kind when she spoke.
"Well, love is when you care more about someone else than you do yourself. So much, that you would be willing to die for that person."
With grandma, there was never a question as to just how very much she loved her family.
May was the daughter of William Eugene Traughber and Leora Wells. Raised on a ranch/farm in Texas; and being the eldest of 9 children, much was expected of her. In her youth, she 'worked the mules" and plowed the fields alongside her father. She went to school when she could and eventually became a teacher. May also loved music, receiving a certificate of accomplishment from the Music Conservatory in Dallas.
After she married, she lived in a number of places, eventually settling in Mentone, California. There, she spent the last years of her life, residing with her son Larry, in Mentone.
Now, almost 20 years later, I still miss her. As I sit mending one of the much loved quilts she made by hand, I remember the last evening I saw her . . .as she sat by the window brushing her long white hair, that cascaded to the floor.
