Mahans celebrate 70 years together
Eldon and Genelle Quick Mahan celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary at a family gathering on March 16. The Gainesville-area natives were married March 26, 1949, in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Eldon, the son of Homer and Faye Mahan, met Genelle, the daughter of Ben and Lena Quick, at Skeeter’s Cafe, where Genelle worked as a waitress. Eldon, a World War II Army veteran, was working at the service station owned by his father on the southwest corner of the Gainesville square. Homer Mahan also operated the town’s first license office out of the service station. Eldon also worked on the construction of Bull Shoals Dam. The couple’s first date, says their daughter, Julia Naylor, “was probably just Dad taking Mom home from the cafe.” Genelle later worked as a telephone operator in Gainesville, a job that required her to memorize customers’ phone numbers and ask all callers, “Number please?” The Mahans moved to California for a short time, seeking work, and then settled for a while in Kansas City, where Genelle became a beautician and Eldon worked as a carpenter and a gas station attendant. Julia was born in 1958. When they returned to Gainesville, Genelle opened a beauty shop, and Eldon worked for Bill Exline and then Joe Ebrite in the Standard Oil business here. Later, when he bought the business and took over the Standard Oil agent’s job here, Genelle sold her beauty shop to work with him in the office. Eventually, he sold the business to John Luna, who renamed the company Ozark County Gas. Eldon continued to work for the company. During that time, Genelle worked for what is now Baxter Healthcare in Mountain Home. In the 1990s, they both retired, and they continue to reside in the Gainesville home where they’ve lived for 55 years. In addition to their daughter, they are the grandparents of Chad Naylor and wife Alicia and Erica Pleasant and husband Chase, and great-grandchildren Emma and Easton Naylor and Cadence and Ava Pleasant. (Their daughter Julia provided the information in this announcement as a surprise for her parents, to whom she expressed thanks “for your ongoing example of love and devotion.”)