Oscar Culver Dees

The following article appeared in a local Porterville, California, newspaper after the death of Oscar Culver Dees, and was dated October 11, 2002: Oscar Dees Left Nothing Undone....Couple held hands until the very end..."He gave me strength and was always there for me. What a loss." As quoted by his widow, Edie Dees. Here is the article from the paper: For 34 years, Ethel ("Edie") Dees walked through life hand-in-hand with her husband, Oscar. Three days after he suffered a massive stroke in their Porterville home, when it became apparent he wasn't going to recover, she finally had to let go. "We had always held hands," says Mrs. Dees, "so I held his hand until it was over."

Oscar Dees had turned 85 on July 10th. He was, his wife says, happy and healthy. Right before his stroke in September, his doctor had told him he had the heart of a teenager. "That man was not sick," says Edie Dees, who married Oscar on May 18, 1968. He was 10 years older, in his early 50's, and they both were single parents. Oscar who grew oranges, had three boys, while Edie, who was working at an insurance agency, had one.

She was coming off a failed marriage and was not looking for romance. "At that point I wasn't interested in men, " Mrs. Dees says. "I didn't think it was worth it. But he changed my mind." Oscar Dees, she says, "was a good man, a caring and loving husband." He used to always tell folks, "My wife won her Oscar without having to make a movie." The couple was so lovey-dovey, friends and family teased them about it.

"Everything we did we did together," Edie Dees says, "even buying groceries. He had these little habits around the house I miss so much. I'd be in the kitchen cooking and he'd come in and I'd say, 'Are you looking for something?' And he'd say, 'Yes, I'm looking for sugar.'"

Oscar Dees was born in Franklin, Arizona, the fifth of seven children. He grew up on a farm and after sampling other jobs as an adult went back to his roots, buying a farm in Porterville in 1951. "Oscar wore many hats in his lifetime," Mrs. Dees recalls. "He owned an automotive shop in Long Beach, was a real estate agent and sold insurance, but most of us remember him as a farmer. In the past he had raised cotton and alfalfa, but he decided oranges were what he wanted to grow, and so he bought the groves."

His ranch was on South Main Street. He and Edie built a home together on Memory Lane, where she says, "we made memories." As dedicated as he was to her, he spent many happy hours in his orange groves. "He'd always tell me, 'I know all my trees personally,' " Mrs. Dees says. "He enjoyed his work and did a very good job. He taught his boys to work too an they have thanked him for that."

Oscar Dees retired from ranching in February 1992 after surviving a serious bout with cancer. When he was 70 he took golf lessons and became quite good at the game, playing at River Island Country Club and the municipal golf course. When he and his wife went on trips, he'd work in a round of golf. "He loved to travel and see the many things of interest," Mrs. Dees reports. "We traveled many miles in many states and enjoyed our journeys, be they long or short." Last year she says they visited eight states in seven weeks.

Oscar Culver Dees died in the hospital on September 4, with his family by his side. He had nto left anything undone. "He loved his family vvery much, and let them know it," his wife contends. "He was a loving dad to his four sons and teir wives, grandpa to his 12 grandchildren and their spouses and great-grandpa to 14 great-grandchildren. He was loved a lot and will forever be loved and missed by all of us."

Edie Dees says she feels "blessed to have had him and his love for all those years." "He made me feel that I too was important, he gave me strength and he was always there for me," she says. "What a loss."

Life Stories, about people in the community who have recently died, are published on Fridays in The Recorder. If you'd like to write about someone close to you, call Tracy Conner at 784-2498 or send an email to Tracy Conner@link.fredom.com

This story was written by Tracy Wenzel Conner as a Special to The Recorder.