Alex Carpenter

Epitaph

Description

113-YEAR-OLD MAN DIES

The long life of Alex Carpenter came to an end Tuesday.

Mr. Carpenter, 113, died Tuesday at the Klamath County Nursing Home following a brief illness. He had been a resident at the home since 1974.

Mr. Carpenter was born Jan. 27, 1868, in Cedar Creek, Mo., just three years after the end of the Civil War. He was raised in the Missouri-Arkansas area.

A farm worker his entire life, Mr. Carpenter spent his early days in the fields of Missouri and Oklahoma, usually picking cotton.

Foot power was his primary mode of transportation in his early days. In fact, he walked back and forth across Missouri and Oklahoma at least three times in his life. He also spent about six months delivering mail by horseback between Arkansas and Oklahoma.

When he came west in 1901 at the age of 33, he again relied upon foot power to get the job done. He also told relatives that he once walked across the United States accompanied by a mule.

Mr. Carpenter moved to the Klamath Basin in 1941, along with his sister, Martha Walker, and her husband, both deceased. He worked in the potato fields in the Merrill area until the late 1950s.

A long-time favorite at the Herald and News, Mr. Carpenter was the subject of numerous feature articles during the past decade.

He rarely attended school in Missouri, preferring instead to play hookey. As a result, he never learned to read or write.

He once said he found automobiles "pretty interesting, but never did learn how to drive one. I just walked."

Growing up, marbles became a major passion and he once claimed: "I never was beaten in my life. None of 'em beat me."

Fishing for catfish in the White River in Missouri was also an early pasttime.

Another "favorite" for Mr. Carpenter were chewing tobacco, which an uncle started him on when he was about 6 years old. He kept the "chawing" habit throughout his life.

He also used to have a taste or two of whiskey made at a still near his family home in Missouri.

"I drank a little once in a while, but I never did like it all that much," he once said.

Instead of whiskey-making, "I'd rather pick cotton than anything, but I was pretty slow," he told the newspaper in 1977.

He is survived by his nephews, Ted and Sam Walker of Merrill; and nieces, Mrs. Curtis Helt, Merrill, and Mrs. Harold Barton of Burley, Idaho.

Herald and News

December 30, 1981