Joe Boswell, 92, of Whitney, passed away Thursday, April 7, 2011. Services will be 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 10, at Marshall & Marshall Funeral Directors in Whitney with interment to follow at Whitney Memorial Park. Visitation will be 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, April 9, at the funeral home.

Joe was born in Hill County, Texas, to the late George and Clara Lee Boswell, the eighth child of ten. He attended Liberty Hill School through the eighth grade and high school in Whitney. He served as a lineman in the 915th Signal Corps Depot Aviation during World War II in North Africa. He returned to New York and hitchhiked home to Whitney. His hitchhiking experience made him never pass a hitchhiker without offering a ride.

Joe was a natural born farmer. He loved the black dirt and was totally content on a John Deere tractor plowing, planting, or harvesting. His idea of a vacation from his General Tire job was to be on the tractor hauling hay, plowing, picking cotton, or some other back breaking work. He relaxed by listening to Big Band music and the Stamps Quartet on the radio in his younger years. When he was 37, he married Bertha Taylor, after he had the money to build their house, paying for it in cash which was how he bought everything he ever bought. At 92 years of age, he had never bought anything on credit.

Together Joe and Bertha enjoyed Southern Gospel Singings. She made him take her to one, he heard a song he liked, bought a book and was hooked. He went on to be president of The Texas State Convention and the Hill County Singing Convention hosting a singing the first weekend in May with a "singing in his barn". Though Joe and Bertha had no children, he was a wonderful uncle, delighting in his 19 nieces and nephews and their children. He was everyone's "favorite uncle". He taught most of them how to drive (at very early years) both cars and tractors. He spent many hours teaching kids to ride horses, drive cars, pickups and tractors to the sometimes horror of their mothers.

Joe was also everyone's friend. A totally unselfish, generous, helping friend. He would loan out his car, trailers, tractor and equipment to anyone, often not knowing who had what. That doesn't even mention the money he loaned to keep so many going when down on their luck. Joe had a marvelous, sometimes mischievous sense of humor . He was the strongest, hardest working man matched perhaps only by his brothers. Joe will be missed by his adoring nieces, nephews and a host of loving friends.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Bertha, on December 25, 1999; four brothers, Clark, Ed "Bully", Harlan "Cutter", Larry, "Pistol", and four sisters, Imogene Bonds, Georgia "Tince" Brown, Florence "Cat" Reed, and Frances "Hoot" Halford.

He is survived by sister, Dell Bonds, of Hillsboro; many nieces, nephews, other family members, and friends.

Waco Tribune: 4/9/2011...I7