Herschel Walter Hemphill, Vinland
Vinland ? Services for Herschel Walter Hemphill, 93, Vinland, will be at 1:30 p.m. Monday at Vinland United Methodist Church. Private family inurnment will be in Stony Point Cemetery before the service.
Mr. Hemphill died Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005, at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
He was born Nov. 28, 1911, in Syracuse, the son of Harrison Howard and Amanda Samantha Brizendine Hemphill.
Mr. Hemphill served as a cryptographic technician in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1946. He was an elementary teacher at Weybright and Stony Point schools in rural Douglas County. He was a farmer and part-time school bus driver for Vinland Consolidated School District 88. He served as director of the Noxious Weed Department of Douglas County from 1962 until he retired in 1976.
He volunteered for projects at Santa Fe Railroad Depot in Baldwin. He served on the Board of Supervisors of the Douglas County Soil Conservation Service and Wakarusa Watershed District. He was a lifelong member of Vinland United Methodist Church and a member of the Santa Fe Trail Historical Society of southern Douglas County.
Mr. Hemphill married Anne Elizabeth Kelley on June 23, 1940, in Vinland. She died May 20, 2004.
Survivors include two sons, James, Tucson, Ariz., and Howard, Vinland; a daughter, Rebecca Browning, Lawrence; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials to the church, sent in care of Rumsey-Yost Funeral home in Lawrence.
Online condolences may be sent at www.rumsey-yost.com.