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Marion Webb in his younger days of coaching.
Marion E. Webb, otherwise known as The Carolina River Man and lovingly as Paw, passed away on August 30 after 88 years of adventure in Ridge Spring.
Captain, teacher, coach, councilor, principal, superintendent, land surveyor, carpenter, and artist were some of the many titles Webb held throughout his life– although not one ever defined him entirely.
His son Edwin “Eddie” Webb compares his father to “a modern-day Mark Twain, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Voyage of Columbus, Black Beard, Forrest Gump, and all rolled into one.”
Webb is remembered facilitating adventures like white-water paddling, camping, canoeing, or anything involving being in the water or the woods.
“Material things were never important to him as long as he had some type of boat,” said Eddie. “If he didn’t have a boat, an inner tube was fine.”
Although he never was a fan of fishing, you could often find Webb on his ‘poor man’s water mansion,’ often referred to as his yacht. This ‘yacht’ was a pontoon boat with a boarded-up, homemade shelter built alongside his friend, Steve Carter.
“He once jumped off of a shrimp boat and swam to Hilton Head Island before it was developed,” said Eddie, who could share countless adventures his father took him and his siblings on.
One memory comes in fragments, but Eddie recalls hitting rough waters while being pulled on skis by his father who was driving the pontoon boat through the channel connecting Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie.
The boat nose-dived into a huge wave and Eddie remembered why bringing the lifeboat on an adventure with his father was always a good idea.
Webb lived every day with a fervor for life, even after he was left paralyzed from the neck down around age 47 in May 1981.
When returning from white-water rafting on the Chattanooga River on his 1947 Knucklehead Harley Davidson motorcycle (the same one he took his wife on dates on years earlier), he lost control of the bike and crashed.
Webb spent the remaining 41 years of his life as a quadriplegic, but his sense of adventure never waned.
“He was fearless even following his accident,” said Eddie. “We knew he wasn’t lacking smarts but we did sometimes question his decisions for some very risky endeavors. We would often look at each other thinking, ‘Does he remember he is paralyzed and in a wheelchair?’”
“I came to the conclusion that though educated and very intelligent, his passion for adventure would always overcome his judgment and reasoning abilities,” he said.
“The last few years of his life, he would go explore in the woods with his little tiny wheelchair and get stuck somewhere and we have to go find him,” said his grandson and country music star, Cody Webb.
Webb’s accident did not change his view of the world or his thirst for adventure, it just shifted the method.
Cody did not know his grandfather before his accident, but still knows the adventurous spirit he had well.
“I know he was always on an adventure, running a river somewhere and having near-death experiences. And even after the accident, they would take a pontoon boat that a friend of his made down the Savannah River to the coast every year,” said Cody.
“They did it about 10 years in a row and every single year they would either sink or break down in some kinda way,” said Cody. “It was just crazy, and then they’d get rescued every single time. That was just what he lived for.”
With adventures like white-water rafting being limited after his accident, Webb would paint them instead. His art commonly depicted rural life and almost always featured water through bold colors of oil paint even with limited movement of his hands and arms.
“He couldn’t hold a paintbrush, so he had to wear a special type of glove and had to hold the paintbrush in his mouth and put it in the air and kind of shove it up in there where it would stick to the canvas and paint that way,” said Cody.
Webb’s artistry was not just seen on the canvas, but in his relationship with those around him.
Webb was ‘Paw’ to everyone he encountered and often stood as a father figure in the lives of people who were not his biological children.
Webb possessed the quality to take people for who they were and hear their stories without judgment or expectation, which were traits people flocked to.
Many of the people in Webb’s life were given a nickname.
“If you were a part of Paw’s circle for any length of time, you would be honored with a new nickname of Paw’s choosing,” said Eddie.
Cody’ was nicknamed ‘Buffalo,’ and his daughter-in-law and primary caretaker after his accident, Mildred, became ‘Lil.’
“If you hung around him for more than five minutes, you’re gonna have a nickname, he called me Buffalo my whole life,” said Cody.
The love of Webb’s life, the late Mae Ruth Handberry Webb, was nicknamed ‘Duck’ after she underwent hip surgery leaving her with a slight waddle. Mae passed away in 2001.
Webb married Mae, a Martin native, in June 1953 and raised three boys–Eddie, Jody, and Mauri, who passed away. Eddie remembers his parents love as steadfast.
Nicknames were just one of the valued components of the relationships Webb built, another part was his ability to lessen their burdens simply by lending an ear.
His grandson, Cody, or ‘Buffalo,’ remembers his grandfather as “one of those people that you could talk to about anything.”
“He took people exactly for who they were,” said Cody. “He was one of those people I could always talk to about anything, even when I wasn’t comfortable talking to my parents or my close friends. I knew I could always come to…I called him Paw.”
Cody remembers singing old country songs with his grandfather on Christmas. A favorite was ‘Honky Tonk Toys,’ by John Conley.
While Webb encouraged Cody to follow his dream, Cody did not get his musical talent from him.
“He did the thing where he would try to sing, and I mean, he knew he was terrible and he didn’t have a musical bone in his body, but he used to try to sing Elvis songs and it was incredibly bad,” said Cody jokingly. “But, he always loved it.”
“Even during the period of time following his wreck as he was adapting to life as a quadriplegic, people still came to him with their problems and much like his father,” said Eddie.
Webb was born in Barnwell to Rev. M.B. Webb and Winnie Fallaw Webb on Jan. 8, 1934. His father, Rev. M.B. Webb, is described by surviving family as patient and humble, and was known for healing broken churches throughout South Carolina.
A dear friend of the family, James Fowke, lived with the Webbs throughout high school, even sharing a room with Webb. Fowke has many memories of both Rev. M.B. Webb and his son.
“I lived with the family, which accepted me after my own family had to dissolve because of my father’s death,” said Fowke, who feels indebted to the Webb family. “I was devoted to him as a friend.”
Fowke explains Rev. M.B. Webb was a pastor at First Baptist Church in Barnwell when it was located on Marlboro Ave. before it burnt down around the 1950s, and was subsequently rebuilt where it stands today.
When the Webbs lived in Barnwell, the two-story house was located at the corner of Academy St. and Franklin St. until it was moved down the block, according to Fowke.
After his accident, Fowke would often drive Webb to the Veterans Affairs hospital in Augusta.
“He was only 47 when he got injured. I never, never heard one word negative about his condition, he was always positive,” said Fowke. “That was a trait that very few people would have with his condition.”
Fowke feels he lost a great friend in Webb, and describes his stamina for living as unbelievable.
“He was so fortunate to have befriended James Fowke, who later became not only the most loyal friend anyone could ever hope for, but eventually moved in and became a family member as well,” said Eddie. “James and Daddy remained close throughout his lifetime and there was nothing James would not do for him.”
Fowke remembers Webb as a star-athlete who could master any sport in high school. This passion for the game led Webb to a career in coaching at Williston-Elko School District.
Webb coached Susan Rhodus-Derrick in basketball her first year playing guard for the varsity team. She remembers him as fair, kind, and with the ability to treat everyone the same.
Derrick now lives in Irmo, but has fond memories of her time on the team.
Outside of coaching, Webb served as the superintendent, principal, and a physics teacher at Aiken County Public Schools. His passion for learning new things grew while studying physics at Furman University as well as Duke University.
Although a learned man and an educator, Cody carries his grandfather’s favorite phrase with him to this day, “don’t let school ruin your education.”
“Books are written and movies are made about people with much less interesting lives. Hopefully as time passes, my brother Jody and I, along with family and friends will share some of these incredible stories and adventures for all to read. For now, all of Daddy’s family and friends bid a very special farewell to one of the most remarkable men God ever made.
Daddy would often talk in nautical terms so Jody and I say, ‘Farewell Captain,’” said Eddie.
