Velton Delhart Tidwell

Boerne1
05/26/2022 01:40 PM

July 19, 1931 – May 16, 2022

Born to Andrew Jackson Tidwell and Eva Viola Nation in Altus, Oklahoma, on July 19, 1931, Velton Delhart Tidwell was 5 years old when the Dust Bowl forced his family to migrate to California.

Velton, often called “Boy” due to being the only son among daughters, grew up accompanying his grandfather to work in fields and orchards during the Great Depression. Shaped by the need to survive and provide for his family even as a young boy, and surrounded as he was by a strong culture of work, Velton’s lifelong ethic of upholding responsibility and securing his family started here.

After graduating from King City High School, Velton served in the Korean War as a radarman on a U.S. Navy destroyer. When he returned home to Greenfield, the rest of his life began.

He married Marjorie Wilkinson on April 30, 1955. Together, they raised four children – Michael, Greg, Sharon and Laura – built a prosperous life and traveled the world.

Initially working as a butcher in the local grocery store, Velton’s integrity and work ethic caught

the notice of Henry Doyle, a local businessman who took him under his wing and eventually invited Velton to partner in his real estate and insurance business. The story goes that Velton made his decision by opening the phone book, noting the addresses of local Realtors and driving by their houses to see what sort of life they could provide their families. Satisfied by what he saw, he worked in business serving his community in the Salinas Valley for the next 30 years.

Anyone can attest to Velton’s honor, fairness and the strength of his word. Velton valued family, punctuality, completeness, consistency and hard work.

“Hard work covers up a lot of mistakes,” he would say.

Every Sunday, he united the clan at the family cabin for games and sharing meals at one table, under one roof. Quick with an adage or joke, shrewd as a pair of aces, always prepared to help without asking for gratitude, he led his family with courage and independence. No hardship could out-stubborn him.

Life ran on a clockwork routine – dinner at six – that was legendary for Velton’s unyielding insistence that time bent to his world and not the other way around. These were all ways he established order for his family, creating a place of certainty and stability, the kind his childhood hadn’t been able to offer him.

Even as his health changed in his final years, the central motivation to protect his own and help others continued to reveal itself as his source of purpose and meaning in life, the restless engine that would animate him nearly to the day he passed.

Velton Delhart Tidwell died 90 years old, a husband, great-grandfather, leader of his family and a good man, on the morning of May 16, 2022, in Boerne, Texas. He was preceded in death by his sister, Peggy; son-in-law Kirk; and his daughter, Laura. He is remembered by Marjorie, his wife of 67 years; his sisters, Jackie, Beth and Debbie; his children, Michael (Lori), Greg (Elvira) and Sharon; his grandchildren, Clayton, Avery (Kenny), Dellene (Shawn), Sam and Taylor; and his great-grandchild, Eldon.