Posted on 07/03/2019
Paul Miller Elliott Jr. of Kingsville Tx passed away on June 26 2019 at his home in Hobbs NM, at the age of 96. He was preceded in death by his sister Barbara Elliott Young and by two of his sons, Lee and Tommy Elliott. He is survived by his wife Abbi Lamb Elliott, his son Roger Elliott of Lufkin Tx, and eight grandchildren through his first wife Evelyn Richardson Elliott.
Paul was born in Kingsville Tx and grew up during the hard years of the Great Depression, helping his father Paul Sr. keep the family auto repair business open and solvent .... Elliott Motor Company on South 6th St. was a well-known part of Kingsville life for many years.
Paul received an appointment to the US Naval Academy, graduated with distinction in June 1944, and was sent to the Pacific where he was a gunnery officer on the destroyer USS Callaghan. He went through the last climactic year of the war with Halsey's Seventh Fleet until the Callaghan was sunk by a kamikaze plane on July 29 1945, at the very end of the Battle of Okinawa .... he survived but many unfortunate sailors did not.
After the war, he returned to South Texas and married Evelyn Richardson of Bishop .... he was a farmer, an engineer for Celanese Chemical, then went back to school, earned a Ph.D. in physics from Texas A&M, and then was a professor of physics at Texas A&I University in Kingsville for many years. He was very proud of his good students and it is certain that many of them will always remember him.
Some of his favorite years were from 1948 through 1962, living on our farm and helping my two brothers and me to grow up, running around barefoot and dodging the rattlesnakes.
He was a great marksman, an avid hunter, and he enjoyed escaping from civilization in the wilds of McMullen County, from where he and my brother Lee brought home many a deer.
Paul was a licensed pilot for over 75 years .... while teaching at A&I, he discovered sailplane flying .... soaring ....which was to be his main passion for the rest of his life. After his first marriage ended, he moved to Hobbs NM with his second wife Abbi and he greatly enjoyed the superior soaring conditions there. He was always a teacher and he taught many young people how to fly, how to enjoy it, and how to learn and survive to fly another day and always aspire toward self-improvement.
Paul was a great son, husbad, father, and grandfather, but he was also very much his Own Man, and this will be his greatest legacy .... he refused to bend the knee and he always spoke the truth as best he saw it .... truth always tempered with kindness.
His favorite books of the Bible were Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
There is much more that could be written here, but I can hear him saying "Enough .... I did the best I could, that is all that a man can do."
For those of us who knew him and loved him, his best was very special .... we shall not see his like again.
Published in Corpus-Christi Caller-Times on July 3, 2019