EFTON FRIEND

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, March 26, at Lilly Ridge General Baptist Church for Efton Friend of Gainesville, who died March 22, 2009, at the Gainesville Health Care Center. He was 99 years old.
Mr. Friend was born Feb. 1, 1910, in Shiloh, the oldest of Harrison and Maudie Muncey Friend's six children. After his mother's death, Efton took daily responsibility for his five little sisters, dressing them, combing their hair and seeing that they got to school. He only finished third grade himself, and he could not read or write, except to sign his name. But he could count money, tell time, and outsmart anyone who tried to cheat him.
He gained two stepsiblings, Juanita and Elza, when his father married Ivy Lawson. Harrison and Ivy Friend had 15 more children together, making Efton part of a huge family of siblings, half-siblings and step-siblings that totaled more than 20 children.
On Nov. 13, 1937, he married Juanita Murrill, his stepsister unrelated by blood. A few years later they moved to a little hollow near Gainesville where there's a spring that never runs dry. Efton and Juanita raised their 11 children there in a house that, for many years, had just two rooms. He lived there nearly 70 years, until his recent illness.
Efton worked hard and clung to the old ways, cutting wood with a cross-cut saw to sell as firewood and splitting fence posts with a long-handled maul. He hauled corn to Hodgson Mill in a horse-drawn, iron-wheeled wagon. The trip there and back, plus the days spent waiting for the corn to be ground, sometimes took nearly a week.
Efton grew tobacco, cured it and chewed it. He and Juanita always had large gardens, and they canned everything they grew – most of it on a wood-burning cookstove.
He never learned to drive a car, always preferring to travel on horseback. After all their children left home, it was Juanita who learned to drive.
Six years ago, after Efton's family insisted on wiring his house for electricity, he complained that he hadn't had a good drink of water since they put the pump in his well. He eventually adjusted but always preferred his wood cookstove over the electric range his family installed in his kitchen.
He was preceded in death by his wife; his parents; five sisters, Verdie, Erma, Elma, Geneva and Retha; four brothers, Elza, Joe, John and Trellis; one daughter, Eva; one son, Lawrence; three grandchildren, Brian Loftis, Robbie Bates and Angie Loftis Newton; one great-granddaughter, Duste Loftis Pierce; and one great-great granddaughter, Caney Pierce.
He is survived by two brothers, E. W. Friend and Leroy Friend; eight sisters, Faunee Barnett, Maxine DeBoard, Modie Evans, Mamie Strong, Peggy Robbins, Polly Ousley, Fern Berger and Freda Loftis; nine children, Betty Garfit, George Friend, O. J. Friend, Nettie Sue Hogan, Becky Boyd, Benny Friend, Charlie Friend, Mary Bates and Wilma Pendergrass; 22 grandchildren; 33 great-grandchildren; 10 great-great grandchildren and dozens of nieces and nephews.
Funeral services Thursday will be officiated by Jimmy Kyle and Joe Gaddy, with interment in Lilly Ridge Cemetery. Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Clinkingbeard Funeral Home in Gainesville. The family will have dinner from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday at the church. Memorial contributions may be made to Lilly Ridge Cemetery.