Eva Marie Vinson

Eva Marie Felton Vinson, 86, of Potosi passed away Saturday, November 6, 2021. She was born December 19, 1934, in Roaring Springs, Texas. She was the 8th of 11 children born to Algie and Phoebie (Dikes) Felton.

The family moved to the Abilene area when she was a baby. She lived in and around the Potosi area most of her life and attended school at North Park, Potosi, Wylie & Eula. She was active in sports during her high school years playing basketball, volleyball, and softball. While at Wylie she was part of the grade school pep squad. She was voted most popular her sophomore year at Eula.

She married Jack Vinson on December 22, 1951. Together they farmed and ranched their whole life. They had 3 kids: Evelyn, Dwain & Vicky.

Together her and Jack established Vinson Cattle Company and Vinson Dirt, selling roping calves and light weight stockers. Marie had a love and a talent for raising cows and bottle babies all her own. She could get a calf to take a bottle when no one else could or mend a crippled leg with unconventional methods that worked.

Several nights a week she drove a truck pulling a 40-foot gooseneck trailer full of calves to the sale. During those days, she was often found driving a tractor, plowing or planting the fields for the calves. If either ever broke down she was ready and able to fix it. Her talent for driving or fixing things, certainly didn’t end there. She could drive a loader, dozer, bobcat and more. She fixed mechanical issues from small engines on a lawn mower to large equipment & the occasional broken talking baby doll. Often her tools of the trade were just a little WD-40 and a butterknife.

Her talents were not limited to outdoor activities by any means. She taught the girls how to cook, sew and quilt and helped them with their sewing projects for 4-H and Home-Economics classes. Her favorite indoor activity was probably remodeling. She could renovate a house from roof to floor, pipes to porches. From time to time she would enlist one of the kids or grandkids in helping her, passing along all her tricks. This was often done using some of her great finds from the garage and estate sales she frequented. 

Although she was talented inside the home, many of her lessons tended to venture back outside.  She loved to fish and taught the kids and grandkids to fish so they could catch, clean, and cook their own meal. She taught them to swim in case they fell in doing so. She taught them to garden so they could grow their own food. A garden needs a cleared spot, so she taught them to burn the grass & weeds off for one. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t set on fire, and it was never really too wet to burn just depending on how much diesel you wanted to use.

Marie tried to pass along the ideas of have no fear and never give up, and “can’t never could” to everyone. She certainly had no fears she showed. She was the family’s number one snake killer amongst other things. She once used a child’s plastic toy hoe to kill a rattlesnake. You could call her any hour of the day or night and she was there in a heartbeat to kill snakes or whatever else needed removed including attack roosters.  

Marie was preceded in death by her parents and 8 of her siblings; L.P. Felton, Edith Gammon, Bertie Lee Webb, Dorothy Felton, Betty Jo Brown, Robert “Buster” Felton, Kenneth Felton, and Jack Felton; Her husband Jack Vinson, and one great grandchild.

She is survived by two sisters, Ina Mae (Louie) Newman and Bessie Wilson; three kids, a son Dwain (Ruth) Vinson, and two daughters Vicky Vinson (Terry Truitt), and Evelyn (Chuck) Tilbrook; five grandchildren, Darrell (Ginger) Vinson, Tracy Vinson (Ross Bullinger), Jake Dutton, Lisa (Bryan) Camp, Matthew (Lauren) Tilbrook, and six great-grandchildren Daniel and AnnMarie Vinson, Kaleb, Judah and Luke Tilbrook and Griffin and Sydney Camp.   

Visitation will be Tuesday November 9, 2021, at The Hamil Family Funeral Home, 6449 Buffalo Gap Road, from 5:00 -7:00 p.m. Funeral Services will be held Wednesday November 10, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. at The Hamil Family Funeral Home followed by graveside services in the Potosi Cemetery.