Marion Wilhite

Marion Ellis Golding Wilhite, a long-time resident of Beeville, died in Fredericksburg, Texas on Monday night, January 23, 2017, at 11:50 p.m. Marion and her twin sister, Francis Ellis Golding, were born on October 29, 1918, at the family home in southern Georgia, in rural Brooks County, near Valdosta. The twins were named for their maternal grandfather, Francis Marion Ellis Jr., of Beeville. Marion and Francis were the fourth and fifth of seven Golding children born to Lula Ellis Golding of Beeville and James Medley Golding. When the twins were 5 years old, they came to Texas to live in Beeville, to be raised at the home of their grandparents, Frank and Mary Ann Cook Ellis Jr. Marion and Francis attended the First Methodist Church and they began singing in the Methodist church choir while they were in school in Beeville; they graduated from A.C. Jones High School in Beeville in 1936. Around 1938, Marion met Allan Wilhite, who had recently moved to Beeville and joined the staff at the U.S. Post Office. They were married there on March 21,1939. Although he had been born in South Texas, Allan had spent his boyhood growing up and working in the Panama Canal Zone, where his parents had moved in 1918. Three months after their marriage in 1939, Allan convinced Marion to move to the Panama Canal Zone, where he resumed working in the U.S. Postal Services Department of the Canal Zone Administration. Their three sons were born in the Canal Zone between 1940 and 1946. Following the death of her grandfather, Frank Ellis Jr., in Beeville in 1948, Marion and her family moved back to Texas. Allan obtained a transfer from the Canal Zone to Baytown, Texas, where they settled just east of that city in the Cedar Bayou community. There, they became active members of Cedar Bayou Methodist Church – both were members of the church choir; Marion was a leader in the Women’s Society of Christian Service, later the United Methodist Women, as well as teaching Bible study and holding other leadership roles in the church. Marion and Allan also became the parents of two daughters born in Baytown in the 1950’s. In 1971, after the death of Marion’s uncle, Richard Ellis, the Wilhite family moved from Baytown to Beeville. Allan retired from his long career in the U.S. Postal Service and the family was able to move into the same Ellis family home where Marion had been raised, on Ellis Road east of Beeville. The Wilhite family became members of Beeville’s First United Methodist Church and resumed their active participation in church activities. Marion served several terms as the president of the United Methodist Women. She was also active outside of the church with the Beeville Garden Club and the Art Guild, as well as china painting, the latter along with her sister Francis, under the guidance of Elizabeth Schultz. Marion was a proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, but she was most proud of being a fifth generation Texan. Her great-great-grandfather arrived in Bee County in the mid-1800’s, after having brought his family from South Carolina to Texas and settling in Bee County just before the founding of the city of Beeville. Her great-grandfather, John Wesley Cook, fought under Captain A. C. Jones in the Civil War, and was a prominent stockman, one of the early breeders and dealers of Hereford cattle in the area. J.W. Cook also donated 150 acres of land for the establishment of the Texas A&M Experiment Station in Bee County, the first such station in Texas. So, even though Marion spent some years away from Beeville, Beeville was always home to her and her Beeville roots were deep. In September 2013, after a series of minor strokes, Marion was hospitalized in Beeville and San Antonio. She then was moved into full-time care in a skilled nursing home in San Antonio, where she resided until early January 2017, when she was moved to Windcrest Nursing & Rehabilitation in Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, Texas. Marion was pre-deceased by her husband, Stephen Allan Wilhite Sr, in 1992; by her second son, Barrett Ellis Wilhite, in 2004; and by her twin sister, Francis McKinney in 1997; as well as her other six siblings. Immediate survivors include two sons, Stephen Allan Wilhite Jr, of Seguin and James R. Wilhite and wife, Pamela, of Fredericksburg; two daughters, Mary Ann Featherston of Beeville and Laura Jean Marshall and husband, Reverend Monte Marshall of San Antonio. Marion was also close to her various nieces and nephews, especially the children of her sister, Francis, who live in Beeville, Jesse E. McKinney, Elaine McKinney, Linda McKinney and husband, John Humston and their children, and Ellis McKinney and wife, Sarah and their children. In addition, there are eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, January 27, 2017 at Galloway & Sons Funeral Home Chapel. Funeral services will be conducted at First United Methodist Church, on Saturday, January 28, at 2 p.m., with Rev. Dean Fleming officiating. Burial will follow in the Glenwood Cemetery in Beeville. Memorials may be made to the Methodist Mission Home, South Texas Children’s Home, or to the First United Methodist Church of Beeville.

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