Obituary of Wayne Owen McMasters

Wayne Owen McMasters passed away peacefully at home on May 29 after a brief period of failing health at the age of 98. He was born on July 6, 1912 in Morrisville, Pennsylvania to James and Ida McMasters. He was the last survivor of their nine children. He attended rural school and his first year of high school in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. Following that year his family moved to Kansas where he attended Ottawa High School, graduating in 1931. Following high school he taught rural school near Ottawa for five years. In 1933 he married his high school sweetheart, Margaret Velma Fisher. They had two sons, Alan, born in 1934, and Harold, born in 1937. In 1938 Wayne entered the Railway Mail branch of the U. S. Postal Service and the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. His job consisted of working in the mail car on various trains running in and out of Kansas City as a member of a team of men picking up, sorting, and delivering mail to the towns along the train's route. In 1944 he transferred to the Los Angeles area to improve the health of his sons and worked on trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco. He also worked for a brief time at the Burbank Airport sorting airmail. The family lived in the local towns of Montrose and La Crescenta. After his sons graduated from Glendale High School they went to the University of California at Berkeley. Velma decided to follow them after taking a year of courses at Glendale College so the family moved to the town of El Cerrito near Berkeley. Wayne easily switched his job to trains running from San Francisco to Los Angeles. In 1960 when Velma graduated from U.C. with a Masters degree in Accounting she hired on as a faculty member of the then new Cabrillo College and she and Wayne moved to Soquel. In 1970 the mail cars ceased to be needed because of the invention of zip codes. Wayne then became the Assistant Postmaster of the Capitola Post Office. He retired two year later at the age of 60. He had an excellent "green thumb." When he wasn't on the train he was raising flowers and vegetables. After moving to Soquel he devoted much of his time to raising roses, camellias, and cymbidium orchids. He also loved to play golf. When Velma retired from Cabrillo College in 1977, they began traveling to Europe and various places in the U. S. tracing the family's genealogy. Velma passed away in 2006. Wayne continued with his gardening until the last few months. He is survived by his two sons, Alan and Harold, 10 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. No service is planned.