Duval A. Edwards, age 96, died peacefully at home in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, on November 7, 2011, from heart failure. He is survived by a daughter, Lynn Edwards of Matagalpa, Nicaragua; a son, Walter Edwards of Beijing, China; four grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.
At age 16, just one term shy of graduating from high school, Duval ran away from his home in Tioga, a tiny town near Alexandria in central Louisiana. It was 1932, the depths of the Great Depression. Determined to help the family after his father's small business failed, Duval looked for work, but for weeks got only occasional odd jobs. He lived as a hobo, hitching rides in cars and on trains, rummaging in garbage cans for newspapers to keep him warm while he slept.
He eventually made it to San Antonio, where he found enough work to support himself as he finished high school. While working full time, including as an aide to a Texas state senator, he put himself through night law school. He was admitted to the Texas bar at the age of 21, in August 1937. In 1938 he married Elizabeth "Cissy" Jameson of San Antonio; she died of a heart defect only two years later.
Grieving, Duval joined the Army in June 1941. He served in the Counter Intelligence Corps as a special agent, first in the southern United States and later in the Pacific, until the end of World War II. Fresh out of the Army, he took a trip to New Orleans in the last week of 1945 to visit a friend. He ended up falling in love on a New Year's Eve date with Kay Kohara, the sister of his best friend from high school. The next year they married in New York City, where Kay completed a fellowship in pediatrics and Duval used his GI Bill benefits to take writing classes.
Duval spent most of his postwar career working as a claims adjuster for a national insurance company, combining his legal and intelligence experience. After retiring, he wrote two memoirs, The Great Depression and a Teenager's Fight to Survive and The Senator and the Runaway Teenager in the Great Depression, as well as an account of the Counter Intelligence Corps in the Pacific in World War II, Spy Catchers of the U.S. Army in the War with Japan. Duval and Kay were married for more than 60 years before her death in 2006
At age 16, just one term shy of graduating from high school, Duval ran away from his home in Tioga, a tiny town near Alexandria in central Louisiana. It was 1932, the depths of the Great Depression. Determined to help the family after his father's small business failed, Duval looked for work, but for weeks got only occasional odd jobs. He lived as a hobo, hitching rides in cars and on trains, rummaging in garbage cans for newspapers to keep him warm while he slept.
He eventually made it to San Antonio, where he found enough work to support himself as he finished high school. While working full time, including as an aide to a Texas state senator, he put himself through night law school. He was admitted to the Texas bar at the age of 21, in August 1937. In 1938 he married Elizabeth "Cissy" Jameson of San Antonio; she died of a heart defect only two years later.
Grieving, Duval joined the Army in June 1941. He served in the Counter Intelligence Corps as a special agent, first in the southern United States and later in the Pacific, until the end of World War II. Fresh out of the Army, he took a trip to New Orleans in the last week of 1945 to visit a friend. He ended up falling in love on a New Year's Eve date with Kay Kohara, the sister of his best friend from high school. The next year they married in New York City, where Kay completed a fellowship in pediatrics and Duval used his GI Bill benefits to take writing classes.
Duval spent most of his postwar career working as a claims adjuster for a national insurance company, combining his legal and intelligence experience. After retiring, he wrote two memoirs, The Great Depression and a Teenager's Fight to Survive and The Senator and the Runaway Teenager in the Great Depression, as well as an account of the Counter Intelligence Corps in the Pacific in World War II, Spy Catchers of the U.S. Army in the War with Japan. Duval and Kay were married for more than 60 years before her death in 2006
Duval A. Edwards, age 96, died peacefully at home in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, on November 7, 2011, from heart failure. He is survived by a daughter, Lynn Edwards of Matagalpa, Nicaragua; a son, Walter Edwards of Beijing, China; four grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.
At age 16, just one term shy of graduating from high school, Duval ran away from his home in Tioga, a tiny town near Alexandria in central Louisiana. It was 1932, the depths of the Great Depression. Determined to help the family after his father's small business failed, Duval looked for work, but for weeks got only occasional odd jobs. He lived as a hobo, hitching rides in cars and on trains, rummaging in garbage cans for newspapers to keep him warm while he slept.
He eventually made it to San Antonio, where he found enough work to support himself as he finished high school. While working full time, including as an aide to a Texas state senator, he put himself through night law school. He was admitted to the Texas bar at the age of 21, in August 1937. In 1938 he married Elizabeth "Cissy" Jameson of San Antonio; she died of a heart defect only two years later.
Grieving, Duval joined the Army in June 1941. He served in the Counter Intelligence Corps as a special agent, first in the southern United States and later in the Pacific, until the end of World War II. Fresh out of the Army, he took a trip to New Orleans in the last week of 1945 to visit a friend. He ended up falling in love on a New Year's Eve date with Kay Kohara, the sister of his best friend from high school. The next year they married in New York City, where Kay completed a fellowship in pediatrics and Duval used his GI Bill benefits to take writing classes.
Duval spent most of his postwar career working as a claims adjuster for a national insurance company, combining his legal and intelligence experience. After retiring, he wrote two memoirs, The Great Depression and a Teenager's Fight to Survive and The Senator and the Runaway Teenager in the Great Depression, as well as an account of the Counter Intelligence Corps in the Pacific in World War II, Spy Catchers of the U.S. Army in the War with Japan. Duval and Kay were married for more than 60 years before her death in 2006
At age 16, just one term shy of graduating from high school, Duval ran away from his home in Tioga, a tiny town near Alexandria in central Louisiana. It was 1932, the depths of the Great Depression. Determined to help the family after his father's small business failed, Duval looked for work, but for weeks got only occasional odd jobs. He lived as a hobo, hitching rides in cars and on trains, rummaging in garbage cans for newspapers to keep him warm while he slept.
He eventually made it to San Antonio, where he found enough work to support himself as he finished high school. While working full time, including as an aide to a Texas state senator, he put himself through night law school. He was admitted to the Texas bar at the age of 21, in August 1937. In 1938 he married Elizabeth "Cissy" Jameson of San Antonio; she died of a heart defect only two years later.
Grieving, Duval joined the Army in June 1941. He served in the Counter Intelligence Corps as a special agent, first in the southern United States and later in the Pacific, until the end of World War II. Fresh out of the Army, he took a trip to New Orleans in the last week of 1945 to visit a friend. He ended up falling in love on a New Year's Eve date with Kay Kohara, the sister of his best friend from high school. The next year they married in New York City, where Kay completed a fellowship in pediatrics and Duval used his GI Bill benefits to take writing classes.
Duval spent most of his postwar career working as a claims adjuster for a national insurance company, combining his legal and intelligence experience. After retiring, he wrote two memoirs, The Great Depression and a Teenager's Fight to Survive and The Senator and the Runaway Teenager in the Great Depression, as well as an account of the Counter Intelligence Corps in the Pacific in World War II, Spy Catchers of the U.S. Army in the War with Japan. Duval and Kay were married for more than 60 years before her death in 2006
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