MERRILL, John Edward

The Daily Miner, Kingman, AZ - Published on February 24, 2012 - John Edward Merrill, age 70, died on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012, at the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center in Phoenix. He was born at the New Cornelia Hospital in Ajo, Ariz., on May 14, 1941. He lived in Kingman from 1966 until 1981. Although he maintained his home in Kingman and visited when he could, he had been living in Phoenix for many years for work and health reasons. John grew up in Ajo and graduated from Ajo High School with the Class of 1959. He then joined the U.S. Army, where he was a Specialist-4, assigned to the HQ Battery, 40th Artillery Brigade (Air Defense) at the Presidio of San Francisco. After his military service in 1962, he returned to Ajo and worked for Phelps Dodge in the Track Gang at the New Cornelia Mine. In 1966, he and his young family moved to Kingman, where he worked with the Shovel Repair Crew at the Duval Corporation's Mineral Park Mine. He worked there until the mine closed in 1981, and then moved to Phoenix where he worked for Circle K stores and finally for Revlon Corporation. In 1962, he married the former Nancy Lou DeTurk, of Reading, Pa., in Ajo. John Merrill was second-generation born in Ajo. His father, Albert Merrill, was born at the Ten-Mile Wash Ranch in 1916 and worked for Phelps Dodge until his death in 1959. His grandfather, John Hopwood Merrill, came to the Ajo and Quitobaquito areas in 1904 from St. Louis, Mo., and died in Rowood, Ariz., in 1933. John was a proud second-generation working-class member of the copper mining industry that is a big part of the legacy of the great State of Arizona. He was also a proud American, being the descendant of one Nathaniel Merrill who came to the Massachusetts Colony from England in 1639. John Merrill was a lifelong student of history and how the world worked. He was an avid hunter and collector of bottles, coins, stamps, watch fobs, trade tokens, porcelain signs, rocks, arrow heads, license plates, books, and all manner of things old and historical. He was a good father, husband, son, brother, employee, friend, counselor, historian, and a handy repository of knowledge for a myriad of subjects of life. John is survived by his mother, Ruth Merrill Alley of Tucson; his wife, Nancy of Kingman; his son, Ted of Wahiawa, Hawaii; his brother, Albert of Buckeye; and a host of other family members and friends. Services will consist of anyone who knew John Merrill remembering how he made them smile, assisted them in some way, taught them something, or was just a good guy to be around. His ashes will be scattered at a later date, at an as-yet undetermined place in the desert near Ajo.