Neil Trask Jr.

1925 - 2018

Neil Webster Trask, Jr. BEAUFORT - I am writing this brief summary of my life myself. This is written with no fear of death because Jesus Christ has prepared a place for me. My name is Neil Webster Trask, Jr. I live in Beaufort, SC. I am the son of the late Neil W. Trask and Amie Leith Paul, he is a native of Wilmington, North Carolina and she is a native of Port Royal, South Carolina. My spirit left my body on Thursday, December 27, 2018 in Beaufort, South Carolina. I was born on September 7, 1925, at Pickpocket Plantation in Burton, SC. I like to say that I am a native Beaufortonian but some of my best and longest friends never let me forget that I was born one mile from Beaufort's city limits. I grew up on a busy truck (vegetable) farm; in those days we had one tractor and many mules. The barn was only a few hundred feet from the house and the smell of farm animals was ever with us. Some Sunday mornings on Church Street, a pungent buggy odor brings back pleasant memories of those early days on the farm. I graduated from and enjoyed eleven years in the Beaufort County Schools. The teachers were all family friends or relatives, which was a blessing for me. In Beaufort in those days the boys were all handsome and well behaved and the girls beautiful and perfect ladies. The depression assured there were no resources to be anything else. I was fifteen before I knew we had paper money and the only IPhones were owned by Buck Rogers and Dick Tracy. In the fall of nineteen forty-two I enrolled in old Clemson College, survived two years there, and in nineteen forty-four I was drafted into the US Navy. I graduated from the Navy's Electronic Schools (radar) and was assigned to an experimental long-range radar squadron which was the forerunner of the AWACS of today. In nineteen forty-eight I formed Bay View Farms with my father and farmed fifty years in Burton and on St. Helena Island. March fourth nineteen fifty was the best and defining day of my life. Rebecca Lake Fuller of Florence, SC and I were married. We have spent 68 very happy years together all within two miles of where I was born. She is the love of my life, my best friend, a stabilizing force, and mother of our four wonderful sons of whom we are extremely proud. The center of our lives was the First Presbyterian Church where we were members fifty-five plus happy years. We made many close and enduring friendships working and growing in Christ's Church there. Our last years are spent as members of The Parish Church of St. Helena where we are blessed by the biblical teaching of its Clergy and our happy association with them and its members. God has been ever good to us even when he was slapping our hands. To sum up my life, my accomplishments are few, my shortcomings many, a miserable sinner saved by God's Grace and ever grateful to have lived in Beautiful Beaufort By The Sea with my family, among God's people and with such special friends. He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Rebecca Lake Fuller Trask, a son Neil W. Trask III and wife Donna Baxter Trask of Myrtle Beach, SC, another son Joseph Lake Trask and wife Sallie Wright Trask of Davidson, NC and Robert P. Trask and wife Kimberlie Edmunds Trask of Bluffton, SC, and seven grandchildren. He was predeceased by his son Anthony F. Trask. Services will be held in The Parish Church of St. Helena on Monday, December 31, 2018 at 11 AM with burial in The Baptist Church of Beaufort Churchyard. Anderson Funeral Home and Crematory is serving the family.