OBITUARY: George Edward Book, 90, of Kingsland died March 28, 2014
George Edward Book, a resident of Kingsland, Texas, for the last 30 years, passed away Friday morning, March 28, 2014, a month after his 90th birthday.
Born in Anderson, Ind., on Feb. 28, 1924, to I.B. and Rena Book, George was the eldest of seven children and spent most of his youth in Wayne County, Ill., in and around Fairfield until his high school graduation in 1943. He immediately joined the Army Air Corp during World War II and served as a flight engineer and an instructor for B-17s.
After the war ended, he married his longtime high school sweetheart, Grace Cockrum, in July 1945 prior to his discharge from service in 1946.
He return to Fairfield, where he and Grace established their home. In 1947, he became an Illinois state highway patrol officer until 1950, when the oil company that Grace and his brother John Book worked for expanded to West Texas. The couple, John and his wife, Norma, moved to the Abilene area, where they made their home and were joined the next year by his next oldest brother, Jim Book and his wife, Helen.
Grace and George had Kent Dwayne in 1955 and his sister, Brenda Kay, in 1957 and moved into a new home in 1960 before the children started school on the south side of Abilene. The family were members and very active at First Baptist Church, where both George and Grace were in the adult choir.
George went to work as the entire network relay foreman for West Texas Utilities in 1967, and the couple divorced in 1975.
He met and married Dorothy Kincaid Yates of San Angelo in 1977 and joined her there when he retired from WTU the same year, helping rebuild her business after a vandal-set fire at her Sandcastle School. They made their home in San Angelo and bought a cove-front property in Kingsland on Lake LBJ. George started building their geodesic-domed home in 1982 for their retirement, and they moved in the early fall of 1984.
George was a Mason and recently was awarded for work as a Shriner since 1949 by the Highland Lakes Shrine Club in Burnet and the Ben Hur Shrine Temple in Austin.
George was preceded in death by his mother, Rena; father I.B “Boss”; brothers Fred and John; Fred’s wife Alberta; grandson Alexander Cano; and wife, Dorothy, on March 11, 2014.
He is survived by sons Kent Book and Kent Yates; daughters, Brenda Spyridon, Janelle and Diana Yates; grandchildren Joshua, Zachary, Jason and Travis (Kent’s sons), Preston and Ashton Spyridon (Brenda’s children), Adrienne (Janelle’s daughter), and Crystal and Mark (Kent Yates’ children); and great-grandchildren, Dominique and Siobhan (Josh’s children) and Kingston (Jason’s son).
Visitation is 1 p.m. and a memorial service is 2 p.m. April 1 at Putnam Funeral Home, 145 Texas Ave. in Kingsland, (325) 388-0008. He then will be transported to Johnson & Vaughn Funeral Home in Fairfield, Ill. A graveside service is 10 a.m. April 5 at Maple Hill Cemetery in Fairfield.
Go to www.putnamcares.com to sign an online guest register.