David Wayne (Dub) Lawrence passed away peacefully in his sleep at his home in Etoile, Texas on February 13, 2021, at the age of 71 years, 5 months and 29 days.

David was born on August 15, 1949 in Lufkin, Texas.   He attended Lufkin High School and graduated class of 1967.  After high school, David completed his certification as an X-Ray technician and worked at Memorial Hospital in Lufkin, Texas.

He studied literature, archaeology and writing at the University of the Americas in Cholula, and at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  From his studies in Mexico, he spoke fluent Spanish which he practiced regularly with Spanish speaking people he encountered.

During his career he was an advertising director for a Los Angeles based grocery chain.   He served as the editor of the Sabine County Reporter in the early 1980s.   He retired from Cox Communications as the advertising manager for the Nacogdoches Sentinel in 2009 and resided in Etoile, Texas until his death.

David was a proud Texan,  an accomplished historian and a knowledgeable authority on most any subject one could raise.

Through hours of study and research,  David painstakingly recreated historical events using miniatures of military soldiers and equipment correct to their period spanning the Greek Empire, the Napoleonic Wars, The Alamo and up to WWII.   He was truly a historical human encyclopedia.

He was a singer of songs and an accomplished blues guitarist having played professionally in his younger years.

David loved to spin tales of adventure and mystery to the kids around him.  His nieces and cousins and cousins kids who grew up around him have childhood memories of adventures far more grand than the simple surrounding woods East Texas could have provided without the magical imagination of 'Uncle David'.  With some parental prayer,  all survived it, and our lives are the richer for it all.

More than anything else, David was a poet.  His first poems we know of were written on a manual typewriter given to him by his parents for Christmas when he was a young teen. He continued to write poetry until the end of his life.   He shared with us, through his poetry, a world we otherwise would seldom know.

David is predeceased by his mother, Doris Lawrence;  his father, Wayne Canafax; and his adopted father, James Lawrence.   He is survived by his daughter, Caitlin Lawrence Stabinsky and her husband, David Stabinsky of Nacogdoches; his sister, Cheryl Cryer; his aunt, Anita Davis of Quitman, Texas; and numerous first cousins.

Funeral services will be held at the Starr Funeral Home, 510 Starr St, Hemphill, Texas at 11:00am on Wednesday, February 24 with graveside service to follow at the Hemphill Cemetery.

Pallbearers are Philllip Anderson, Mark Hunter,  Crosby Smith, Wyatt Smith, Nathan Smith and Wesley Smith.

Honorary pall bearer is Ken Nikolas.

David requested that in lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to a Christian Pro-Life parental counseling organization of your choosing.

It is a fitting close to his obituary to share this poem written by David.

High above on a frothy cloud, a ship sails in my dreams.

The stars fled by in the rolling sky, like moonbeams in a stream.

And I heard a voice, soft and low, call out from the cloudy foam,

Like the sound of a bell beneath the sails, 'Come home, my child, come home.

The years have passed. I'm older now, and oh, I miss my home.'

The sound from the lips aboard that ship, I know now, was my own.

-David Lawrence