Donna Unruh Hoberecht, Remembering Gene Maberry, 1942-2000

Gene Maberry, 1960

Editor’s Note: Gene’s death date was included in a posting last year on our website, but we had no obituary and no information about him except that after graduating from East High, he had attended Stanford with Diane Rusch Zinn, Calvin Ross, Gerald Fry, Diana Woodward, Harry Corbin, and other East High grads. Donna Unruh Hoberecht responded to our request for more information about Gene in two ways. Below, she remembers him from life in the ’50s in their neighborhood. She has also shared stories about Gene written by her old friend Derald Linn, East ’59.

Guy Eugene Maberry, known to us as Gene, was a next-door neighbor for a few years when my two brothers, Dale and Keith, and I grew up on Laura Avenue in Wichita.  As you can see in the first picture, we siblings often invited the kids from the homes on either side of us to our backyard for fun and games.  My older brother Dale (East, ’58) loved inventing things in Dad’s workshop.  As this photo shows, he has adapted wheels, boards, and various scraps to put together a “mover” for all of us. 

From L to R: Tony Swisher., Fritz Swisher, Gary Maberry, Keith (East ‘63), Carlene Maberry, Donna Unruh, Nicky Swisher, Gene Maberry, and Dale.

     Summer of 1952

Gene Maberry is at the upper left.

Here, we are peering into a rabbit hutch.  I’m not sure how many little wild baby rabbits were our “pets” for that summer of ‘52.  Our family made many visits to our country relatives, and sometimes we brought abandoned cottontail bunnies home.

We kids spent many summer days outside playing—favorite games included “kick the can” and “hide and seek.”  Catching lightning bugs (fireflies) after dark was also an interesting and enlightening pastime.

 

After a ferocious June windstorm in 1953, the neighborhood kids built a shelter before the clean-up crews came along our street to pick up debris.  Gene Maberry is trying out the new, but temporary, hideout!

 

Derald Linn (East ‘59) lived south of our area and, during my Junior year, he drove a carpool of girls (including me) to  East High in the mornings.  He became a close friend of Gene Maberry, after Gene’s family moved out of our neighborhood and closer to Derald’s neighborhood.

Derald remembers spending a lot of time with Gene.  The two of them floated down the Arkansas River from south Wichita to near Arkansas City one weekend.  Gary Wagner (East ‘60 at left) had the boat, launched Gene and Derald, and then picked them up at the end of their Huckleberry Finn adventure. 

A much longer adventure with Gene Maberry is recounted in the writing, “Go West Young Men” by Derald Linn, as he adds a chapter now and then to his own Lifetime Memories.

Derald’s stories about Gene will be published here in the near future.