Maurice W. Thornton |
| Posted 2010-05-19 by Sharon |
| The Wickenburg Sun, Wickenburg, AZ November 30, 1978, p. 9 MAURICE Thornton He died this past weekend, and no one survived him as far as is known, but then, we all survive him. Maurice W. Thornton was part of the panorama of Wickenburg – a town character with a bit of the character of the town. Graveside services at Wickenburg Cemetery with Bishop Tom Jones of the Church of Latter Day Saints were pending at press-time. Wickenburg Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. Mornings you would see him trudging along the Phoenix highway stoop-shoulder, wearing his perennial jacket and with squashed gray felt hat on his head, walking toward Wickenburg. Evenings he would return on foot again after having made his circuit of town. He carried mail over the Community Action Program office on Tegner. He would amble over to the Wise Owl Center and on occasion read poetry to folks there. He lived in a humble abode across the highway from Vita’s Restaurant. Some folks said he had a family in Nebraska. A funeral home spokesman reported his wife, Fanny B. Thornton, died in 1968, and is buried in the Wickenburg Cemetery. M. W. Thornton’s age is guessed at 75 years. Ask him a question, and he had an opinion on everything. As one person described him, he looked like a wheezing old geezer, but he had “spark.” From a letter published in The Sun on Apr. 6, it was learned he worked in the Tonopah Belmont mine. Folks around said he was a retired miner. From that same letter is his ‘legacy’ to us: “I can see a thriving community out in the clean air of the desert. How would any of you folks like to live out in the hills where all is peace and quiet, or would rather live in the canyons that we call Chicago or New York is the uproar of today’s world….” May M. W. Thornton rest in peace. See Also: Find A Grave |
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