Henry Arthur Rayborn

Henry Arthur Rayborn left our world this past Friday evening, January 4, 2019, to rejoin past friends and family before his Lord. Henry had a firm belief in God and knew that when the time came, his soul would move on up yonder.

Henry was born January 22, 1925, the fourth child of a family of eight, born to Arthur and Lottie (Crisp) Rayborn of north eastern Wright County. He was the last child born in a two room shed that would later become the chicken house. As a young man he travelled to Idaho, Washington and Vancouver during the summers to work and then would come home for winter.

At the beginning of the Korean War he enlisted in the Army. He took Basic Training at Camp Chaffee Arkansas and was sent to Fort Bliss Texas to learn to drive a truck. He was then assigned to a mobile anti-aircraft unit patrolling the Great Lakes. There he met and married Ovila Kuhn. Henry mustered out of the Army after two years and was working in a factory when his mother wrote him a letter and asked him to come home. She was widowed, alone and needed help with the farm. Henry moved back to Missouri and found work at Fort Leonard Wood with Civil Service.

Henry and Ovila raised three boys and later a daughter on a small farm just south of Lynchburg. The accidental death of his youngest son, Dale, was the beginning of a rough patch for Henry as Ovila was soon to be diagnosed with cancer. Henry retired from Fort Leonard Wood to help take care of her. All his boys had moved away and his daughter was in school at SMS.

After Ovila died, Henry met and married Lavell Crews Goldsmith, herself a widow. Henry took a job at Walmart working in sporting goods. He loved selling guns to folks and helping with their automotive needs. He and Lavell advanced their cattle ranching. They eventually had cows on three farms and Henry loved it. Henry then helped Walmart move to its new supercenter and they gave him a new job as door-greeter. Henry thought this was the best job there ever was. He got to say hello to everyone and everyone came to see him.

All good things come to an end and as age crept up on he and Lavell, they sold one farm, and then another. Lavell was sick, so they moved to town. She died in 2011. Henry spent his last years in Wright County being taken care of, cooked for, and cleaned up after at Country Living Assisted Living. He passed peacefully at Cox in Springfield.

Henry is survived by a brother, Harold, and wife, Jo, of Mesa, Arizona, son, Glen, and wife, Laura, of San Antonio, Texas, son, Marvin, and wife, Yvonne, of Sioux Center, Iowa, and daughter, Mary, of Olathe, Kansas.