Otis Eugene Vanderburg

06-02-1920 to 11-06-2014

Otis was born in Hot Springs, AR in 1920. He was the last surviving child of 11 born to Fleming Rose Burr and Daisy Vanderburg. The family left Arkansas when Otis was three and moved to Texas and shortly thereafter to southeast Oklahoma. It was there that his story begins to unfold and his legacy as a hard working, mischievous, energetic, loyal and faithful son, husband and father is captured in the hearts of his family and all who knew him.

Farming in Bennington, Oklahoma, during the depression and the dust bowl left an indelible mark on his personality. Even in later years when he could afford to buy any make or model vehicle, he chose the base model pickup with no power windows, and no matter how hot the weather, we could not turn on the AC because it might strain the engine too much. If something around the home broke, he fixed it, not giving any thought to something new. To him, problems were an adventure, a challenge just waiting to be conquered.

His mother died when he was only nine years of age, leaving his father to raise 11 children in poverty, yet he never spoke of what he did without, only of what he did have. He remembered his first sip of soda, or walking 3 miles into town for a loaf of bread to treat the family at lunch time. He and his brothers spent many hours hunting in the woods surrounding his home place.

As a young man of 19 he saw a girl walking down a country road one day in a pretty green dress. He was taken by her at first sight, but not schooled in the social graces was perplexed as to how to get her attention. At a function in the one room schoolhouse that girl, Christine, was writing on the chalkboard. When she turned to the classroom he hit her in the face with an eraser. That was the beginning of an almost 70 year marriage. They were married by a justice of the peace and moved into the farm home Otis shared with his Dad and brother Glenn. Mom worked in the fields with the men and prepared dinner and supper for them from meager ingredients every day. It did not take Dad long to realize he and mom wanted to strike out on their own so they left and moved to Duncan, OK to share crop peanuts. Upon their first harvest, a heavy rain fell and flooded the fields ruining the crop. After a brief survey for anything salvageable he told Christine, “There must be a better way to make a living.”

They left with nothing but a small suitcase and a bag of belonging, by bus, to join other family members in Morenci, AZ. There they worked in the copper mines until lung disease forced them to move to work in the cotton fields of Casa Grande, AZ. Hearing of possible work in the ship yards of Oakland, CA they set out once again looking for a better way to make a living. On this journey they stopped in Carlsbad to visit Christine’s parents who had recently come to California. While visiting, Otis looked for work and was hired as a Federal Employee Civil Service worker at Camp Pendleton. They never made it to Oakland. Otis worked as a welder for 30 years before retiring. He made many friends while on the job, his closest and dearest, Adron Jenkins. They remained friends for life and played pool, their favorite hobby, at every visit.

One job was never enough for this enterprising fellow. He maintained a home welding shop where he worked evenings and weekends to supplement the family income. He raised cattle for beef and always had one if not two cows for dairy products. Chickens ran free in the yard for eggs and fried chicken Sunday dinners. Every couple of years he would fatten a hog for ham, bacon, and homemade sausage. He built the first family home on El Camino Real, in Carlsbad, with no power tools, as he declined to pay the power company for something he could provide. He created a baseball diamond with back stop as a gathering place to use the pitching machine he built after seeing one only once. He built a swimming pool with a diesel power heater so his children could enjoy inviting friends and family over. He hand cranked many gallons of homemade ice cream, made from fresh cream the cows generated, and in later years put a motor on the crank machine to make things a bit easier. With all his working hours he always found time on the weekends to enjoy family and extended family.

He helped build the Carlsbad Gospel Tabernacle Church, where he later accepted Jesus into his heart, as well as building two family homes, and homes for several friends. He kept our cars running, our sprinkler systems in order, and did all our plumbing work, even adding bathroom and bedroom additions to our homes. No project was too big, or too hard to tackle.

In the later years he spent many hours making quilts and quilting them on his homemade long arm quilting machine. When the industrial sewing machine stopped working and parts were no longer available, he purchased a new machine. He was never satisfied with the new computerized version.

He is survived by his son David (Laura) Vanderburg, daughter Karen (Steve) Webber, daughter Renee (Steve) Tague, grand sons, Mark Tague, Matthew Tague, Christopher Vanderburg, granddaughters, Danielle Rumford and Stephanie Vojta and 12 great grand children.