Bill Dobbs: A Most Excellent Sendoff for an Exceptionally Good Person

 

by Rocky Macy

Cousin

Today's posting is going out late because I have been on the road.    I was in southwest Missouri yesterday evening attending a funeral service for my cousin and good friend, Bill Dobbs, and drove back from my sister's home in northwest Arkansas this morning.  

Bill's service was a most excellent sendoff.   It was highlighted by a very moving video presentation which was created, scripted, and narrated by one of his sons-in-law, and a tribute from a minister who not only conducted the service but had also been a lifelong friend of Bill and his wife, Karen.  The program, in its entirety, revealed the man and comforted those who loved him and were there to mourn his passing.  

Bill was a devoted family man.  He and Karen had been married forty-nine years and had four grown children, many grandchildren, and even a few "greats."  He was also a lawyer who until his retirement just a couple of years ago was the prosecuting attorney of McDonald County.  He was very well known and respected throughout the community,  and as a mark of that respect, the current issue of the local newspaper had an extensive article about his life at the top of the front page.

My mother and father both came from large families, and some of their siblings went on to have large families as well.   As a result, I had many cousins while growing up.  My mother and Bill's mother were sisters, and they each broke from the norm and just had two children.   Those two sisters and their husbands also became business partners when they were young and built and ran a truck stop and service station on busy Highway 71 near Goodman, Missouri - and each family had their home on property adjacent to the business.  Consequently my sister and I spent several years of our younger lives living within walking distance of our cousins, Bobby and Billy.  So of all of our many cousins, we obviously knew them best.

I was the oldest of the four.  My cousin Bob, was one year younger than me, Gail was almost two years younger than Bob, and little Billy came along four years after Gail.  I remember well the day Bill was born.  It was in November and I was in first grade.  Being a kid, and especially being a very young kid, nobody told me much of anything, and I certainly did not know that I was about to get a new cousin. When I got off of the bus that day Gail, who had just turned four, came running to meet me with the news that "Aunt Christine has gone to the hospital to get a baby!"  That was news to me because until that time I didn't know that babies came from hospitals!

But my experiences with Bill Dobbs did not end when my parents sold their share of the business to his parents a few years later and we got into the tourist business in a nearby town.    We had plenty of contact as adults, far more than I had with any of our other cousins.   Bill was a "mountain man" re-enactor and brought his gear and his stories to schools where I was the principal to put on shows and demonstrations for the students - an activity that the kids loved!  And then later when I worked in child protection for the state, Bill was the Chief Juvenile Officer for the local circuit court,  and he and I would often be involved with the same troubled families.  

It is very hard to believe and realize that Bill has now gone on.  He was only around for sixty-eight years, but in that time he and Karen created an extensive and loving family, and he left an indelible imprint of kindness and generosity on a community that he called home for almost his entire life.

Bill Dobbs was an exceptionally good person.   I felt privileged to have known him, and honored to have been his cousin and his friend.