Sources |
- [S926] Find-A-Grave, (www.findagrave.com).
Benjamin E Stoebner
Birth: 19 Mar 1927 Eureka, McPherson County, South Dakota, USA
Death: 3 Jun 2015 (aged 88) Tehachapi, Kern County, California, USA
Burial: Bakersfield National Cemetery, Arvin, Kern County, California, USA
Plot: Section Col-A Row E Site 123
Memorial #: 147651182
Bio: Ben E. Stoebner, long-time Tehachapi resident and a developmental optometrist whose work helped hundreds of people, died Friday, June 3.He was born in Eureka, South Dakota, on March 19, 1927. In 1958 he established an optometry practice in Boron, traveling to Tehachapi to see patients one day a week from 1958 through 1965 when he relocated to Tehachapi.He met and married his wife, Mary Jane, in Boron and they raised their five children ? Ben, Ed, Meg, Liz and Andy ? in Tehachapi.Dr. Stoebner's last years were challenging; he lost a kidney in 2001 and part of his leg in 2002. Despite his medical battles, he continued his work with developmental optometry, advancing a theory that some children's trouble with learning is tied to vision and that they must literally learn to see. Many families were helped by his work in Tehachapi and elsewhere.He served in the Marine Corps and a funeral service is planned at the Bakersfield National Cemetery. A date has not been set.Follow up article Tehachapi News 6-15-15The Tehachapi area lost a distinctive and remarkable man recently with the passing of Dr. Ben Stoebner, an optometrist who had been a local resident for 50 years. Dr. Stoebner and his wife, Mary Jane, a former elementary school teacher, have lived in a historic home on the corner of D and Green Streets in the heart of Downtown Tehachapi and raised their five children there.Dr. Stoebner (pronounced "Stabe-ner") fitted countless Kern County children with glasses over the years and was also dedicated to what he called "developmental vision" ? teaching kids to read, write and work with numbers. He helped many, many children and adults over a career that spanned decades. He was one of the most intelligent men in the area with an extremely high IQ and was also a sports enthusiast, an excellent golfer and an avid supporter of Tehachapi athletics.Ben was born on March 19, 1927, and he grew up in the small South Dakota farming town of Eureka, which is in the center of the state near the North Dakota border. His family were German immigrants and his grandfather Andrew Stoebner was a South Dakota state representative and senator. Ben had a close-knit family and he maintained tight lifelong bonds with his brothers Clarence and Darold.Ben was a Marine Corps veteran and as a gifted athlete. He played for two different Marine Corps basketball teams. After World War II ended, he attended Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., and obtained his optometric degree in 1953. He moved to Lodi where his brother Clarence raised grapes and sold insurance ? when people from Eureka got tired of the harsh weather of the northern Great Plains, they tended to move to Lodi where there were familiar faces from their little hometown.Ben was having a hard time getting an optometric practice started in Lodi, and a couple of guys in a diner suggested that he try the area around Edwards Air Force Base, since the region was thriving. Ben took their suggestion and moved to Boron and opened up a practice serving the people of the surrounding area. At the time, there were only about three single young people in Boron: Ben, another guy who was a chemist at the Borax plant, and a young schoolteacher from Lewiston, Maine, named Mary Jane McCarthy. Luckily for Ben, Mary Jane picked him and the two were married in 1958.Ben helped people with their vision needs in Boron and the surrounding communities, including Mojave and Tehachapi, coming up once a week. In 1965, he asked Mary Jane if she wanted to move up to Tehachapi and she agreed, so the Stoebner family, which included their young son Benjy, moved here. The family later grew to include children Eddie and Meg and the twins ? Andrew and Elizabeth.Ben's optometry practice was located in a building on Green Street across the alley from the Tehachapi Library (lnow the Tehachapi Museum). The building was owned by Mrs. Dewey, who lived in the adjacent large home, and a few years later, she asked the Stoebners if they wanted to buy the property and they agreed ? so the family moved there in 1970. With such a central location and lots of kids, the house was bustling with activity. I know because I was there ? Benjy and my brother George and I were classmates from kindergarten through high school graduation in the Tehachapi Unified School District, and I always enjoyed going to the Stoebners' historic home with 11-foot ceilings. Mary Jane was calm and soft-spoken amid the chaos of lots of kids and it was a welcoming place to be.The Stoebner kids were athletic like their father and played in all the Tehachapi sports, and Ben and Mary Jane were always there to support them. Ben was great friends with Dick Johnson, George Koutroulis and other longtime locals and I enjoyed hanging out with them and listening to their banter while covering Warrior sporting events for the Tehachapi News.Ben had a good sense of humor and the absurd and he loved to laugh. He was active in a number of community groups over the years, including Toastmasters, Kiwanis and the Lions Club, and he also wrote a column for his boyhood hometown newspaper, The Northwest Blade.Later in life he lost a lower leg to cancer, but he kept active anyway and known by some newer residents as the guy with the prosthetic leg with the American flag on it, which was painted by his artistic daughter Meg.In an introduction to his book on developmental vision, Ben wrote this paragraph that impressed me and stuck with me over the years, as it acknowledged an often underappreciated segment of society: "This book was written for a special group of people: mothers, grandmothers and elementary school teachers... you are the people who develop our children's abilities for survival and academic intelligence. You do the work. You are important people. You are special people." It is a true and wise statement from an unusual and intelligent man.A funeral service for Dr. Ben Stoebner will be held on Friday, June 26, at 10 a.m., at the Bakersfield National Cemetery, followed by a reception at the Woods Pavilion, 323 W. ?F? St.
Inscription: PFC US MARINE CORPSWORLD WAR II
Created by: Jill Greene (46900963)
Added: 9 Jun 2015
URL: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/147651182
Citation: Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 29 January 2020), memorial page for Benjamin E Stoebner (19 Mar 1927?3 Jun 2015), Find A Grave Memorial no. 147651182, citing Bakersfield National Cemetery, Arvin, Kern County, California, USA ; Maintained by Jill Greene (contributor 46900963) .
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