George's Obituary

On March 13, 1940, in Dallas, Texas, Edith Alta Andrews Eastes became a mother for the third time, a son named for his father, George Wilkins Eastes, Jr., who was named for his father, George Wilkins Eastes, Sr., a native of the area of Sachse and Wylie, Texas.  George's mother was a native of Electra, Texas, where his father found her while working in the oilfields of that part of Texas.  Throughout his adult life, this son called himself, George W. Eastes, III, to distinguish himself from his father and grandfather.  At the time of his birth, he had a brother, Arlen Dale, and a sister, Alice Gail, not twins, although the names might raise the question.  Later, came another brother, Michael Andrew, and another, Randall Ray.

George began to grow as a child during the war years of the 1940s, playing at war games with the kids of the neighborhood.  But a more dominant memory of that time was of going to church.  His family life centered around their church, and in 1945 his father became a minister, taking a church in the Dallas area.  George attended first grade in a Dallas school, but the summer of 1947 brought a move to a town where his father had been chosen as pastor of another church.  That was the first of a series of moves that saw George attend schools in seven different towns before his father retired from his ministry and returned to the Dallas area where George graduated from Garland High School in 1958.  At that time Garland High was the only high school in town; now there are multiple high schools offering differing courses of study.

From the day of his graduation and for the next two years, George was not without a job.  But he had no skill to offer and the jobs were low skill, low pay, without chance of advancement.  He believed that he needed to do something to prepare himself for a better career.  Higher education was too costly.  The military draft was still active and his older brother had been taken some years before.  So, at age 20 he joined the US Army.  After basic training at Fort Hood, Texas, in the hot summer months of June, July, and August, and further training in Georgia, he found himself in Germany.  He served three years there, forming a life-long attraction for the beauty of the country, the climate, the difference in the architecture and layout of the cities, towns, and villages, and the cultures by which the people lived, so different from where and how he'd been brought up in the small towns of Texas.  As a married couple, George and his wife, Mary, took vacation trips to Germany and other places in Europe eight times, the first in 1970, the last in 2010.

On discharge from the Army in 1963, George began looking for work.  The Army had not given him a marketable skill, and it became apparent that he needed a college education.  In the fall of 1964, he started college, finally graduating in 1969 from what is now the University of North Texas with a business degree in Accounting.  He used this degree to develop a career from which he retired in 2004.

But the best thing that happened to him during those years was in 1965 when a mutual friend introduced him to a girl, Mary Elizabeth Davis, from Richardson, Texas, at a Halloween roller skating party in Sachse, Texas.  Within minutes of meeting her, they were skating together, his arm around her waist, her hand in his.  It wasn't really love at first sight, was it?  But from that time on, there was no one else for either of them.  They married in 1967, living first in an apartment in Dallas, then buying a home in Mesquite before settling into a home in Dallas where they lived for 30 years.  When they married, Mary had a full-time job and she continued to work until she retired, also in 2004.  They had no children, perhaps because they filled each other's lives completely.

George and Mary loved to travel, going to places other than Europe.  Over the years, they visited California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Massachusetts, and Vermont.  There were trips to the Bahamas, Mexico, and Canada.  They found that Texas has delightful places to visit, in the north, east, south, and west.  Their last trip together was in 2015, seeking cooler weather away from another hot Texas summer, and they found it in the high altitude of Cloudcroft, New Mexico.

As retirement was approaching, George and Mary began looking for some place to get away from the hassle of big city life in Dallas.  They found Mason, Texas, a small town in the Texas Hill Country and took up full-time residence there in 2005.  In just a few years, Mary began to show signs of dementia of the Alzheimer's type; the signs were easy to ignore at first, just a matter of aging as happens to all of us.  But the condition worsened, was diagnosed in 2013 as what it was, and it governed the rest of their lives.  George watched out for her while she was still able to go and do things, then became her full-time caregiver in 2016 when going and doing was no longer possible.  She was taken into hospice care in 2017 and remained there until her passing on June 21, 2023. Mary's sister, Patsy Collins, was a great source of strength and support to George, someone to talk to about Mary, who shared her memories of Mary's life before George came along.  George also appreciated the help and support of the hospice aides and nurses.

George died peacefully on June 23, 2026, in McAllen, TX with Patsy Collins and her daughter, Cassandra Flores, by his side.  A service to remember him will be held on Friday, June 26, 2026 at 10:00 am at the First United Methodist Church, Mason, TX.  He will be buried in a family plot in the Sachse Cemetery, Sachse, Texas on Saturday, June 27, 2026 at 11:00 am.  The Sachse Cemetery is the burial place of William Sachse, founder of the town.  The Eastes family has ties to the Sachse family in that one of the sons of William Sachse married George's grandfather's sister, and they are likewise buried there.  The Eastes family plot was purchased by George's grandfather about 1900. The first burial in the family plot was in 1910, George's father's infant brother.  A second burial was in 1934, another brother killed in a car wreck, and a third in 1954, George's father's uncle.  There were no more until George's brother, Mike, died in 1976.  Then came George's parents, his mother in 1992, his father in 1996.  George and Mary will be buried opposite his parents.  At Mary's side is her older sister, Virginia Williams who died in 2019.  George's brother, Randy, passed away in 2025 and George will be buried next to him.  George's brother, Dale, lived in Wichita Falls, Texas, all his adult life, and he's buried there.  His sister, Gail, died in 2024, but is in a plot with her husband and stepson.

George was preceded in death by his siblings, Randy Eastes, Gail Bass, Dale Eastes and Michael Eastes, making him the last surviving member of his immediate family. He is survived by Mary's sister, Patsy Collins of McAllen, Texas, as well as numerous cousins, nieces and nephews from both George's and Mary's families.

George's and Mary's parents came from large families so there were always fun times at family gatherings.  While many aunts, uncles, and cousins on each side are now gone, George accepted that family gatherings for funerals, though a sad time, were also a fun time for family who rarely saw one another.  It was his wish that as family gather for his funeral, they'll remember the fun times when he was still around to enjoy them.