Veteran dies day after attending Saturday ceremony

Not many would put “pot-washer” on their list of skills. But Sam Hobson did. Those who knew him said it was just his way of being a worker bee, of putting others first.

And he wasn’t alone. Whenever people talked about Hobson on Tuesday and his servant’s heart, they couldn’t mention him without mentioning his wife of 65 years, Mary.

“He was a self-proclaimed pot-washer at First Presbyterian Church,” said the church’s pastor, the Rev. Dennis Tedder. “That was second on his list of credentials at the church. That speaks volumes about who he was. He saw himself first as a servant to God.”

Hobson died Sunday at 91. His clothes for church were still lying out ready and he had not had the chance to see a picture of himself on the front page of Sunday’s Independent Mail. He had been photographed doing something he did every year: attending a Memorial Day ceremony at the Anderson County Veterans Monument.

It was a fitting conclusion, his family said, showing him in a role he loved. The large front-page photograph shows him saluting. He is wearing his American Legion Post No. 14 garrison cap and has five military medals pinned to his coat.

Hobson served three and a half years in the South Carolina Army National Guard’s 30th Division, 118th Infantry. He was called to serve in 1942 during World War II. One of the patches he still displayed in a shadow box proved that he fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

And a certificate Hobson recently received thanked him for 60 years of service to the American Legion.

“He was top-notch,” said a fellow American Legion member and friend, Bob Gibson. “He and Mary were always taking care of our functions.”

For 44 years, he was employed with Duke Energy, spending some of those years as a bus driver in Anderson and then later in marketing, said Rudolph Cole, a co-worker and friend since 1959. After he retired, Hobson volunteered with the Duke Energy Retirement Club, building wheelchair ramps and working on other service projects.

“Any worthwhile project, he was there. They both were. He was just the most loyal person,” Cole said.

He was active with the Boy Scouts of America, where he had earned the organization’s top honor, the Silver Beaver Award. He and Mary were members of the Anderson Historical Society and were longtime volunteers with the Anderson County Museum.

“They loved sitting at that front desk, talking to people. He was a walking encyclopedia, especially with anything dealing with the military,” said the museum’s director, Beverly Childs said. “There will be a big hole left in our volunteer pool with his and Mary’s passing. They’ve been a backbone of our volunteer efforts here for so long.”

Between 200 and 250 people filled the chapel at Sullivan-King Mortuary on Tuesday to honor the man who was an embodiment of many of those in his generation. He and his wife, Mary, married in the middle of the night in 1942 — just before he was shipped off to war, said his son, Sam Hobson Jr.

He said the two would write to each other during the war and his father found a way, through code, to let his bride back home know where he was in the midst of the fighting. When he returned, the couple who thought they could not have any children had five.

Together, they volunteered, went to veterans’ events and worked at First Presbyterian Church. He was the planner and she was always the one running a little behind, their son said.

Tenth months ago, on July 4, she died.

“I remember seeing Dad standing next to her at the funeral, and he said, ‘I won’t be long.’ And he wasn’t,” Samuel Hobson Jr. said. “He knew he had finished his business here on Earth. For him now, the victory is won.”