Merlin Matson

Merlin Lawrence Matson was born April 14, 1928 in Yakima, WA to Manuel and Rena Matson. He was taken home to the family farm north of Buena, WA to join his older brother, Harold. 16 months later baby sister Donna would complete the family. Harold and Merlin went on to work the modest sized fruit farm with their father and grandfather, and carried on the Matson family farm until their retirement. Merlin’s farming career spanned the era of horse drawn spray rigs, into the era of computer assisted farming practices. He and his brother were always early adopters of new equipment and varieties of fruit. They attended professional meetings and organizations, but were never happier to keep up with farming trends in the Valley, than when they were at the local diner for coffee. Though his mother was a teacher, he was home schooled by a private tutor for his first few years. He then attended the Seventh-day Adventist grade school and high school in Granger until his senior year when he went to Auburn Adventist Academy for boarding school. It was there that he first met Doris Holden. After both of their graduations they married in January of 1948. It was an enduring marriage of 59 years filled with love and respect, hard work and happy times, and commitment to family. Merlin and Doris established their home on the family farm, and continued to live there as their family grew to four with the births of daughters Lorraine (Wilson) and Carolyn (Nelson). Despite three families residing on the “home place” times were never better than when “baby sister Donna” and the extended family of Aunties, Uncles and cousins came for holidays and vacations. Merlin’s Granger Seventh-day Adventist church family was also central in importance, and he devoted many hours to enriching and sustaining the church community. In turn he received great enjoyment, satisfaction, and a rich social life. His interests and hobbies were varied; cars and racing, motorcycles, tent camping in the cascades, RV travel, ANY travel including international and cruising, and music of all genres but especially Billy Vaughn and any saxaphone music. He maintained many of these interests even after Doris passed away, and he established his final home, again in a shared family home, with daughter Lorraine and son-on law Richard Wilson in Prosser, WA. He is survived by daughter Lorraine and husband Richard Wilson; daughter Carolyn and husband Warren Nelson; Carolyn and Warren’s son Nathan, daughter-in law Heidi, and their children Katelyn and Colton; and Carolyn and Warren’s son Andrew. To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Merlin Matson, please visit our flower store.