Obituary of Wanda Charlotte Wagner

Wandering Wanda Wagner 10/28/1919 – 7/31/2014 Life is a Beach Charlotte Wanda Curtis’s journey started on Ions Creek near Aly, Arkansas October 28, 1919. She was named Charlotte after her grandmother Lydia Charlotte (Qualls) Lamb and Wanda was a name that her mother had always liked. She was called by her middle name, Wanda or Wandy by her family when younger. Her parents were Lessie May (Lamb) and Benjamin Lafayette Curtis, she joined 4 siblings, Moses Taylor, Anna Bertha, Cora Lou Vita, and Ruth Alene on the family farm. The Curtis family, like many in the South, used call names. In the Curtis family the call name was the middle name. Not all of the Curtis kids had one. Those names underlined are the call names of the Curtis children. The family moved several times in the next six years, living in Sims and then in Story Arkansas. During those six years, four more children were added to the family, Norma Fay, baby boy Curtis (died 3 days old), Benjamin Lowell, and John Talmage “Tab”. 1926 found the family packed and moving to Eddy County, New Mexico in the Carlsbad area. The move was deemed necessary for the health of Lessie. A Model A truck driven by family relatives transported them and their belonging. It’s unclear if the entire family rode on the truck or if there was another vehicle involved to help move the family. The move took a week. They spent their nights at wagon barns, perhaps these were the early forerunners of today’s “truck stops”. By 1933, there were two more children added to the growing family, Harvey Pernell and Paul Holland. The Curtis family was the typical farm family of the time. All members worked from the time they were old enough to hold a tool. Wanda hoed, shoveled, picked cotton, and did household chores. She became the designated truck driver when the family farm mechanized. In 1934, she assisted her brother, Moses and his wife Florene, as the three of them took turns driving their Uncle John and Aunt Lou to Adna, WA. Moses and Florene returned to New Mexico, Wanda stayed behind to visit with family in the area. While there, a group of family relatives took Wanda with them to dig razor clams at Copalis Washington, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. She had never seen the ocean and her first view was at night. She later said that the light from the clam diggers’ lanterns looked like hundreds of stars on the beach. She said it was magical, and it started a life long love affair with the beach. At that time, she decided to live near or on the ocean when she got older. Her first experience riding the rails, was her return trip to New Mexico. She took the train to Washington State for another visit in 1936 and stayed several months visiting family and the beach. She became a frequent rider of the rails between New Mexico and the Pacific Coast for a number of years. When in New Mexico she worked on the family farm. If you stayed there, you worked there, and there was plenty of work to be done. In 1939, she was an enrollee at Camp Capitan, a New Deal, National Youth Administration camp for young women. The normal enrollee had a three-month enrollment. Wanda was there for six months. She said that she was allowed to stay an extra term because they needed her on the baseball team. Early in WWII, she worked in the San Francisco Bay area at the Benicia Arsenal for the Army and at Mare Island for the Navy. In 1943, she returned to New Mexico; worked on the family farm and attended beauty school. She received her certification as a professional beautician in 1944 and worked as a beautician in Roswell, NM until July of 1945 when she moved west for good. She was working in Los Angeles CA, where she met and married Roswell Merrick Graham in 1947, and by 1951 had two sons, Stanley Merrick and Stephen Lowell. At the time of her marriage she officially changed her name to Wanda Charlotte. The marriage ended in divorce in 1952. Wanda worked at various jobs for 6 years up and down the West Coast, while raising Stan and Steve. Some of the jobs she had were migrant field worker, factory worker and taxi driver. She remarried in 1957 in Long Beach CA and by 1960 had another son, Rex Donald Wagner Jr., and a daughter, Jenny Lou Wagner. This marriage ended in 1978. In 1965 she once again moved her family across country, this time to Clark County in Washington State. She moved back to California in 1980 and in 1984 she was living in Nevada. She returned to California in 1988 and after the death of her son Stephen on Dec.18, 1994, she moved to Fir Tree Park in Shelton Washington. Fir Tree Park was the place she had lived the longest in her lifetime. The total number of towns where Wanda lived is 25 and the total times she moved 40, which averages to a move every 2.35 years. Steve and Stan used to say, “that when the grass needed mowing, Mom thought is was time to move and did.” Wanda was an avid reader, rockhound, quilter, crocheter, and beach lover. She was a first class candy maker and cake decorator. She managed to infect all us kids and her grandkids with many of these pursuits. She was a traveling woman, crisscrossing the nation with her family, friends, and relatives. The highlight of each year was attending the Curtis-Lamb Reunion, where there was lots of visiting with sisters and brothers and catching up on the newest family additions. She liked to travel the relative or in-laws’ highway. You can trace her tracks by where her extended family lived. A devoted Christian all of her adult life, church played a central role in her life. She maintained a membership in each town she lived and at the end, when her mind and body were playing out she attended church and bible studies at her final place of residence, Maple Glen Assisted Living. Wandering Wanda’s Earthly journey ended when her boat was pulled up on the beaches of Heaven on July 31, 2014. Meeting her at Heaven’s Sandy Shores was her son, Stephen L. Graham, her parents, Benjamin and Lessie Curtis, her four sisters and their spouses, Bertha & Jack Hood, Lou Vita and Cleburn Wakefield, Ruth and JB Moore, Norma and Walker Hood; her five brothers, Moses Curtis, and wife, Florene; Tab Curtis and wife, Grace; Lowell, Harvey, and Paul Curtis. Those who banded together to wish her Godspeed as she embarked on her final voyage were her sons, Stanley M. Graham, his wife Susie, their son, Tyler, and daughter, Whitney; Rex D. Wagner Jr. and his wife Martha, son Benjamin, and daughter, Monica; Wanda’s daughter, Jenny Lou Downs, her husband Jeff, their sons, Aaron and Bryan; sister-in-law Louise Curtis (Lowell), and nieces, nephews, and cousins from across the country. In-lieu of flowers, please make a donation to your local women's shelter in Wanda's name or to Turning Point, PO Box 2014, Shelton, WA 98584