Edna Earle Webb Priest

Edna Earle Priest, retired homemaker and widow of the late Dr. James E. Priest, died in hospice care on November 12, 2010, at age 87. Visitation will be held from 5:30-7:00 P.M. on Tuesday, November 16, 2010, at Forest Lawn Funeral Home, 4955 Pine Street in Beaumont, Texas. Services will be Wednesday, November 17, at 1:00 P.M. in the funeral home chapel. Interment will follow.

Mrs. Priest was born Edna Earle Webb in Lindale, Texas, on March 18, 1923, to parents Melburn H. Webb and Hattie May Rascoe Webb. Edna was the ninth of ten children in the family. The Webbs moved from their Lindale farm to Tyler, Texas, in 1925, where Mr. Webb worked as a carpenter until his death from pneumonia in 1930. Edna’s mother struggled to raise her children by opening a boarding house in Tyler until she suffered a fatal heart attack in 1933. After Mrs. Webb’s death, Edna and three of her siblings lived in Tyler with an older sister, Mary Beth Parker, until, for financial reasons, Mary Beth and her husband Henry decided to move the two youngest children–Edna and Floyd–to Boles Orphan Home in Quinlan, Texas, in 1934. Edna was eleven years old.

Boles Home was then and still is supported by Churches of Christ in Texas. During Edna’s eight years at Boles, she was sponsored by the South Park Church of Christ in Beaumont, Texas. In the spring of 1942, Edna’s local minister in Tyler, where she had returned after graduation from Boles, was scheduled to hold a gospel meeting at the South Park congregation. Knowing of Edna’s connection to that church, he arranged lodging for her in Beaumont so she could accompany him to Beaumont and finally meet the people who had supported her at Boles. It was on the first night of the gospel meeting that Edna first met James E. (“Gene”) Priest. Gene’s girl friend was with him, so he and Edna visited only briefly after being introduced to each other. However, when Edna got to church the next night, Gene was sitting on the steps of the church, waiting for her with a single, red rose in his hand. That moment was the beginning of a 63-year romance.

Edna and Gene married on Christmas Eve, 1942, and he enlisted in the Army Air Corps shortly thereafter. From March, 1943, to December, 1944, Edna followed Gene to eight different army training bases as he prepared for combat duty as a fighter pilot in WWII. When he shipped to Europe, Edna was seven months pregnant with her first child. She lived with Gene’s sister in Beaumont as he began flying combat missions in the war. In a 36-day span from February 13 to March 21, 1945, Edna’s first child, Dale, was born; Gene’s parents both were killed in an auto/train accident in Beaumont; and Gene was seriously injured when his P-47 fighter plane crashed in France.

When Gene recovered and was sent home, he decided to become a minister. Over the next four decades he and Edna would serve numerous Churches of Christ in Texas, Maryland, and California as Gene pursued his higher education. He received the PhD in theology from St. Mary’s University in 1977. He taught at Pepperdine University in California from 1964 until his retirement in 1989. He and Edna returned home to Beaumont for their retirement and enjoyed attending the South Park Church of Christ, where they had first met. Gene passed away in 2005. Edna will be buried beside him at Forest Lawn.

Edna is survived by a son, Dr. Dale Gene Priest, of Beaumont, Texas; a daughter, Terry Lynn West, of Ozark, Missouri; a daughter, Judy Ann Blackmon, of Grand Junction, Colorado; a son, Edgar Earl Priest, of Abilene, Texas; nine grandchildren; four great-grandchildren, and numerous other relatives and friends.