Edgar Allen Boshear: Aug 28, 1939 – January 21, 1993

Father: Albert Allen Boshear

Mother: Sarah Estelle (Dailey) Boshear

My Brother Ed

I think I was about ten years old. I remember my brother Ed was in the Marines and he and his family lived in a house at Camp Pentleton. We were there visiting them one weekend.

I didn’t know alot about my brother or about the marines but I learned a little bit that day. He was working in his garage building work benches and shelves. It was my job to watch and hand him stuff. He had one shelf built and had a bunch of small baby food jars that were full of various sizes of nails and screws and what not.

I handed him a jar and he took the lid off and nailed it to the bottom of the shelf. I had no idea why he did that and it seemed like a dumb thing to do to me. I mean he was going to have to take it back off the shelf to put it back on the jar. Either that or he was going to have a jar sitting around with no lid.

I knew enough about Ed to know I shouldn’t tell him that I thought he was doing something dumb so I just watched. Then he took the jar and screwed back onto the lid while the lid was still nailed to the bottom of the shelf and the jar full of screws just hung there out of the way, but right there if he needed them. I was impressed.

I said, “That’s what I thought you were going to do”. He didn’t talk much, he smiled at me as if to say, “Of course you did you’re a Boshear, you’re smart”. I let him think that.

Then he started building another workbench. I was amazed with how fast the nails went into the wood. Sometimes it only took one swing to drive a 16 penny nail home. He hit them really hard. Then he hit his thumb… really hard. He said a few things then but I can’t repeat them here. Now I’ve hit my thumb before and I have seen other people hit their thumbs before but I have never seen anybody hit their thumb as hard as he did. He literally crushed it. It smashed. He looked at me and apologized for the things he said a few seconds earlier.

Then he went back to work. How could he do that? When I hurt myself first thing I always do is run for help. He just keep working. Silently. His wife Peggy and his Momma were right inside, why didn’t he go tell somebody? He just keep working. I was impressed.

Finally, he said “Well, I’m getting blood all over everything I guess I better go get this taken care of. So he went in the house and had Peggy fix him up. I still don’t know how he could just ignore that pain and keep working.

I learned a little bit about Ed and the Marines that day.

Thanks Bro, Jerry

I remember a story about Ed driving thru Texas once (I think) and falling asleep, his car went into a ditch and he just sat on top of it and played the guitar until someone rescued him…

Love, Karo