Grandson David Meacham and spouse Doris both pass away in 2014. Only two daughter- in- laws Billie Meacham and Pearl Meacham are living.

Doris Fern Herndon Meacham

Posted: Thursday, April 3, 2014 12:00 am

Doris Fern Herndon Meacham

Doris Fern Herndon Meacham passed from this life into the presence of Jesus on March 27, 2014. As the Scripture says, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."

Doris was born March 1, 1926, at the family farm on the west breaks of Cottonwood Creek canyon, about seven miles north of Culdesac. She and her siblings, Merle, John, Lewis (Mick), Donald and Gladys, were all born to Leslie and Grace Tupper Herndon at the family farm house. As a child, she walked or rode on horseback to the one-room schools on Cottonwood Creek and North Tom Beall Road. Beginning in the fifth grade, she rode in the back of a pickup truck equipped with a canvas tarp canopy to Culdesac to attend school. At Culdesac, she played on the girl's basketball team, played trumpet in the band and graduated as the school salutatorian. She attended one year at the University of Idaho, where she studied art.

She married David Willard Meacham on Sept. 1, 1946, at the Lewiston Christian Church on Seventh Avenue. Doris and David made their home on Middle Tom Beall Road until 1970. They then moved to Nezperce because David and his brother, Howard, divided their farming operation and David and Doris moved to be closer to their land holdings, which were all on the Camas Prairie. They lived in Nezperce until 1985, when they then moved to their final residence in Lewiston. Doris and David had four children, Steven David (Steve), Scott Leslie, Eric Milo (Rick), and Jane Ellen.

Doris would be categorized as a homemaker, but she was also a seamstress and an artist, creating many sets for church productions, numerous oil paintings and toll-painted furniture treasured by family members. She was a dedicated church worker, serving as a Sunday school teacher, a Sunday school superintendent, a Presbyter, a church board member, a camp counselor and a camp cook. She was an amateur architect, designing three of the four houses she lived in after marriage. The last house in Lewiston was drawn so proficiently, the plan she drew was accepted by the Lewiston Building Department as the official building plan and stamped as such.

Her 88th birthday on March 1 of this year was celebrated with a gathering of family and friends at the Idaho State Veterans Home at Lewiston, where David now resides. Doris succumbed to complications of injuries she received in a fall March 19. She passed away at Tri-State Memorial Hospital. Her husband and children were with her, having been summoned just an hour before she passed on.

Doris was preceded in death by her parents, Leslie and Grace; brothers Merle and Mick Herndon; and son Rick (survived by spouse Karen). She is survived by her husband, David; and children Steven (Linda), Scott (Terry), and Jane Johnson (Jerry); 12 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren; stepmother Margret Herndon; sister Gladys Kendrick; and brothers John and Don Herndon.

Her funeral will be at 1 p.m. Monday at Mountain View Funeral Home and Cemetery. Interment and a meal will follow the funeral.