MAX D. BROWN Max D. Brown of Jenkintown, Pa., formerly of Mason, W.Va., died Tuesday in Jenkintown after a long illness. He was a retired employed of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a member of Jenkintown United Methodist Church. Surviving: wife, Lucille; daughter, Mrs. Becky Davenport of Pennsylvania; mother, Mrs. Willie Ruttencutter Brown of Mason; brother, M. Harold Brown of Gallipolis, Ohio. Graveside services will be held Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at Suncrest Cemetery, Point Pleasant with the Rev. Paul Hawks officiating. The family requests that memorials be made to the heart fund. Fogelsong Funeral Home, Mason, is in charge of arrangements.
1916 - 1975 Funeral Service: Helweg's Jenkintown, Pennsylvania 8:00 P.M., Thursday April 10, 1975 Rev. Stacy D. Myers, Jr. Officiating Internment Suncrest Cemetery Point Pleasant, West Virginia "In my Father's House are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2-3
Max D. Brown Point Pleasant-- Funeral services for Max D. Brown, son of Mrs. Willie Ruttencutter Brown, and the late Miles O. Brown, who died Tuesd1 _FUNERAL the Suncrest Cemetery in Point Pleasant at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. The Rev. Paul Hawks will officiate with the Foglesong Funeral Home assisting. Instead of flowers the family has requested contributions be made to the Heart Fund. Mr. Brown had been in ill health for some time. He was a graduate of Ohio University and was an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation until his retirement four years ago. During World War 2 he served with the U.S. Army for three years. He was a member of the Jenkintown U.M. Church and was preceded in death by his father and a son, David. Survivors include his wife, Lucille Krautter Brown; a daughter, Mrs. Becky Davenport, and a brother, M. Harold Brown of Gallipolis and his mother.
Max David Brown was born in Mason, West Virginia on June 3, 1915. He weighed two and a half pounds at birth. It is said that his parents took him home in a shoe box. (I wish that I had asked Grandmother how she cared for him. It must have been her lavish care which enabled him to survive.)
Max attended public schools in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He and Harold had different interests. Max wasn't sports mad like his brother.
Max went to Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, then he transferred to West Virginia Wesleyan. He also did some work at Fairmont State College. He graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in commerce.
When he was 20 or 21 years old Max adopted the middle name of "David" in honor of an instructor at West Virginia Wesleyan, David Ream Schneider. Charles Maxwell was an outstanding personality during the time that Max was born. Perhaps that is how the Browns chose the name Max.
After college, Max did some plumbing work on boats, perhaps at Mason. When World War II came, Max went into the army and trained in Missouri and North Carolina or Virginia. He became a member of the Air Force. As a staff sergeant he went to England, and then to Normandy. He was involved in the Battle of the Bulge. Max returned in the fall of 1945.
Max had married Lucille Krautter, a Mason girl, before he went overseas. They moved to Point Pleasant, West Virginia. His brother Harold was invited to be part of the area rent control administration. Harold recommended Max for the job, which he did until rent controls were discontinued. Harold was contacted by the FBI and invited to apply for the job of special agent. He seriously considered it, but decided that he wanted to continue with education. Instead he recommended Max.
Max applied for the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), then took training in Qantico at Wasington DC in 1948. His first assignment was in Jackson, Tennessee. [I, Martha, remember visiting Uncle Max, Aunt Lou and David there one summer. It was hot and humid--even more so than the Ohio River Valley--and there were lots of 'bugs' on the screen door. I was 7 yrs.]
Max, Lucille and David moved to Jenkintown, Pennsylvania later that same year. Most agents are transferred around the country; however, Max remained at the Philadelphia office throughout his career until he retired in June 1971.
Max and Lucille lived on State Street in Gallipolis, Ohio, when their son David was born in . From 1946 to 1949 Max, Harold and Gar Griffith opened a sporting goods store in Middleport, Ohio. This was near Mason, West Virginia and a twenty-minute drive from Gallipolis. Max, Gar and Harold worked there on Saturdays, and Miles Brown had the store during the rest of the week.
Max was a great outdoors man. He liked hunting, fishing, hunting dogs, being out in the wood and meadows, and trout fishing. Every year he went twice to Canada to Ontario not far North of Kingston where there was a large group of lakes. Max went to Red Horse Lake every year. He had learned hunting from his dad, his cousin Donald and his uncle Lem Ruttencutter.
Max played golf and enjoyed going to sporting events. He was very fond of his family, Lucille, David and Becky. Becky was an excellent student, who went to Penn State and graduated with honors.
In early October 1972 Max had open heart surgery--two by-passes. There were problems afterwards that bothered him a lot. For example, he hallucinations in which he thought that the medical staff were trying to kill him. He was subsequently told one of the by-passes was all right but the other would have to be done in a couple of years.
In April 1975 Max decided to take his own life which he did with a 20-gague shotgun. In his basement. In his chest. Lucille, who was upstairs on the second floor, had not expected this to happen. That was a sad day for us all.
A service was held in a funeral home in Jenkintown for the benefit of his many friends of coworkers in the FBI. The next day at Max's own wish his body was cremated. The urn with his ashes was brought to Gallipolis by Lucille, Becky, Harold, Eloise and Martha. Final rites were on the Sunday at the Grace Methodist Church with minister Paul Hawkes presiding. Afterwards his ashes were buried in Suncrest Cemetery in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in a grave next to his son David and in the plot where his father was buried.
Becky was born in 1949 when they lived in Jenkintown. Every summer Max, Lucille and the children travelled to Mason, West Virginia, where Miles and Willie, Max's parents, had retired. In Evelyn and Ray Proffitt's backyard, the wider family of Proffitts, Foglesongs, Ruttencutters, Zerckles and Browns gathered to play croquet, talk, eat delicious food, including homemade peach ice cream. Uncle Lem Ruttencutter had a wonderful peach orchard.
In August 1956 when Max was driving his car, a child on a bicycle ran into him. Max was driving safely, but couldn't possibly stop quickly enough to avoid hitting the child, an 8 yr boy (I believe). The child died. Max of course was traumatized by this event.
In November 1956 a worse trauma struck the Brown family when David died. The family doctor reassured the family that David just had a virus which was going around. In fact he had appendicitis. His appendix ruptured, and he developed peritonitis. David was an outstanding boy, very intelligent and bright, and he had a spiritual depth to him which was unusual in one so young.
Max's brother Harold said, " Max was my favorite male of all time."
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