Eugene Whitefield Dabbs, III and Nell Rees Dabbs
Eugene
Whitefield (Gene) Dabbs, III (9/24/1917-9/16/2005) was the responsible one. Like his father, he was born and raised at
Dabbs Crossroads, graduated from the Citadel and served in the U.S. Army,
reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During World War II, he was stationed
in various places, including Ireland ,
North Africa, and Italy
A voracious reader who loved to
travel, particularly by car, Gene was widely regarded as a master of story
telling. He could engage anyone in thought-provoking conversation, whether it
was about the latest book he had read or a recent adventure. He particularly
enjoyed discussing politics. His
intellect and robust curiosity were offset by his humility, modesty and sense
of service. As a young man, little did he know that a delightful red head,
Mildred Nell Rees, and four rambunctious sons would change his life forever.
Nell Rees Dabbs (5/1/1922 –
5/6/2005) befriended Gene’s sister, Louise, at Duke University in Durham, North
Carolina, and through Louise, also came to know two young men by the names of
Jack Bevan and Tommy Dabbs. On a lark, they invited Nell to visit Dabbs
Crossroads for the weekend to meet Gene. Later in life, Nell would describe her
trip “to the country” as highlighted by her simple green dress, which was made
on short notice for the occasion. She admitted that the dress ended up being a
“bit too tight and a bit too short.”
Gene and Nell were married six
months later. When Gene was asked when
he fell in love with Nell, he would say, “When
she got off that bus in that short tight green dress, I was in love.” From that point on, Gene became Nell’s
“Hubby,” a nickname that Nell would use for Gene throughout her life with such
frequency that Gene became known as “Hubby” to the rest of the world as well.
Gene and Nell built a cottage
across the road from his mother, and it was there that they lived and raised
four boys until 1972, when they moved into Sumter Cornell
University
On the whole, the landscaping
business sputtered, and Gene was never able to benefit from the boom that
occurred in this field over the following decades. As the boys grew older with the oldest
reaching college age, both Gene and Nell accepted jobs teaching at nearby Maywood High School
Pressed by the financial demands
of four children, a languishing nursery business and college costs, Gene decided to re-enter civil engineering, a
profession that he spent some time in after the war. This decision required him to obtain further
education, and at the age of 50, Gene completed his Master’s Degree in
Mathematics at the University
of South Carolina
Nell, who was usually undaunted
by any of life’s challenges, despised teaching elementary school, where her unruly
students correctly identified her as a pushover. Having obtained a Bachelor of
Arts from Duke University
and a Master’s in Psychiatric Social Work from Boston University
In their later years, Gene and
Nell became one of the most delightful and loved couples in Sumter
After Gene and Nell retired, they
were always together. She would be dressed in pink, purple, or lime
green with matching bright sunglasses, of which she had no fewer than 20. Nell was also known for the large flowers
that she wore on the front of her ankle length dresses, and she would arrange
for Gene to dress in coordinating colors with his shirts, ties and socks
matching her dresses. Whenever they walked into a room together, smiles would
be exchanged throughout. Gene use to
laugh, “I look like a damn Easter Egg,” but,
like a good old soldier, he followed the program.
After the children were all gone
Nell and Gene made a habit of eating out every meal. Cole’s, Bojangles or Buster’s for breakfast
and then they developed a pattern of different lunch and dinner restaurants
depending on the day of the week. Nell
was profoundly lighthearted, having fully embraced the philosophical view that
one can overcome sadness with willful positivity. To her, there was never bad
news. She invented “spin” long before political pollsters knew what it was. She would begin every story with the sentence,
“I have the best news . . . . We are sooo lucky.” Her descriptions of life’s misfortunes were
legendary. To this day, many in the
family, when faced with sad news, will remember Nell’s unique view on life and
wonder how she would spin it. “We are soooooo lucky . . . .” Those who had the opportunity to know Gene and
Nell were the luckiest of all.
Preceded
by Nell in death by only four months, Gene would continue as best he could
their daily ritual, although age was quickly getting the better of him. After her death, he would sometimes awaken
and call out for “Nellie,” a habit that is hard to break after over 50 years of
marriage. Not long after Nell’s death,
Gene stopped by his sister’s house, the old home where he had grown up. “I keep
having this dream,” he said. “I’m lying on the floor with people all
around me eating and I’m trying to tell them something, but no one is
listening. What do you think it means?”
Louise had no idea, but passed the conversation on. When she told me I smiled and shrugged, “Who knows?”
A
week later my husband and I and my mother, Louise, were sitting across from her
brother, Gene, and his son, Rees, at a
local restaurant. “How are you feeling, Gene?”
Mother asked. Gene’s arms were
resting on the table and she took his hands in hers. “Dubious,”
was his reply. He put his head down and
appeared to doze off, something he had been prone to do in the previous weeks.
We continued to scan a menu that we all knew by heart and casually talk. It was several minutes before we realized Gene
was not breathing. It is with some embarrassment that I admit that we
considered whether there was anyway that we could discreetly move the body from
the restaurant to the car without drawing attention to ourselves and disturbing
the other diners. I think that’s a trait inherent in Southerners: a need to keep up appearances and be polite
at all costs.
When
the rescue squad stretched him across the restaurant floor and tried in vain to
revive him, Mother turned to me with tears in her eyes and whispered, “He’s lying on the floor with people all
around him eating. What do you think
he’s trying to tell us?”
“He’s with his Nellie, now, Mom. He wants us to let it be.”
“Oh,” she wept. “I just wish this had all
happened at the Country Club instead.”
