Information about Arnold

 

July 22, 2006

 

 

Payne Update

 

I have continued to stay in touch with Helen and recently I received a call from here asking if I was going to be in town for a while.  She knows that we travel and are in and out frequently.  The reason was to tell me she was sending me a letter about Junior.  I received the letter dated July 1.  She told me that she has had several contacts with Junior as we knew him over the years since Pawpaw died in 1981.  Mostly it was for help financially.  Helen always helped him out whenever he asks.  He referred to himself as Bill Payne.  (His real name was Cleo William Payne, Junior.)  In May a friend of Bills called Helen and told her that he was in real bad medical shape.  Helen was not able to find him as he had been in and out of the hospital and nursing home.  She hired a private detective to find him and he was in a nursing home.

            Junior or Bill has a half brother who we know as Arnold.  Arnold’s full name is Captain Edward Arnold Scheu.  He was know in the family as Arnold but has gone by Eddie or Ed since growing up.  He lives in Beeville Texas and is semi retired from the Merchant Marines (Coast Guard).  He has driven out to see his half-brother Bill a couple of times.  Bill apparently had a stroke back in January and nobody found him for 3 days.  He had fallen and bent his left leg beneath him.  By the time he was taken to the hosp it was not viable and his left leg had to be amputated.  He was transferred to rehab and then had another stroke and back to the hospital.  He now is in a nursing home and will likely be permanently.  He has a feeding tube in for nutrition and has problems with bedsores.  He has regained speech and recognition.

            Helen asked Eddie when he called her to keep in contact with me since I am Helen’s trustee, so I received a call from him several weeks ago.  We had a great visit and he brought me up to date on his life and I updated him on the Smith side of the family.

            Arnold was the child of Gwen and her first husband.  Gwen was a very beautiful woman and wanted to be a beauty queen.  Arnold didn’t fit with that and was given up for adoption.  He was place in foster care and bounce around that system.  When Pawpaw married Gwen after he and Mamaw were divorce, he hired a private detective to find and did find him in Dallas.  He brought him back when he was 4 or 5 and adopted him as his own.  Arnold had pleasant memories of Wichita Falls and mom.  He apparently lived or stayed with Mom and Dad for a while.  He was by his own admission a “juvenile delinquent”.  He remembers playing with Patsy Rodgers one of mom’s cousins and best friends as a kid and also going to Papa Payne’s farm in Wichita Falls.  He also remembers going to Chico with us to visit Uncle Jim’s farm.

 

Edward Arnold Scheu	1943
Linda Franks Fowler	1947
Cleo William Payne, Jr	1948
John Paul Smith, Jr	1949
Richard Allen Smith	1951

 

 

Eddie joined the Air Force and served 6 years before joining the Merchant Marines.  He has lived around the world in Malaysia, Brazil, Middle East, Mexico and Southeast Asia.  He has been around the world 6 times.  He now lives in Beeville Texas and maintains his Captains license working in the Gulf.  By his first marriage he had a son who was 28 when he was killed in Desert Storm.  His daughter is married and lives in Enterprise Alabama.  She and her husband are in the military, she as a linguist and he as a Helicopter training pilot.  They have one son.  Eddie has been married 18 years to his current wife and they have a 13 year old boy and an 11 year old girl.

            Eddie is currently 63 years old.  He told me that Gwen has died in 1989 in Florida of colon cancer and he was able to be there when she died.

 

            Helen has now moved into an assisted living facility and I think she is pleased to have that transition made.  She sounded stronger this last time we visited than in a while.  Her health remains about the same.

 

John