Obit. for Dr. MARION FRANKLIN TINSLEY

[Palomino]

I have been searching for the burial location of Dr. Marion Franklin Tinsley for some time now and today I found the information. I called the cemetery office and they gave me the exact location in the cemetery and faxed me an obituary they had on file. Dr. Tinsley is buried along side his father, Edward H. who was buried Nov. 19, 1948 and his mother, Viola Mae (Veach) who was buried June 1, 1987 and a brother, Edward Harold who was buried July 6, 2007. He told me there is a family monument on the plot, that be believes all four names are engraved upon it, and that he would attempt to get someone from the office to take a picture of the stone and e-mail it to me.

MARION F. TINSLEY, Ph.D., age 68 passed away April 3, 1995 in Humble, Tex. He was the greatest checker player that ever lived, holding the World Champion Checker Player title since 1955. With an IQ of a genius, he entered The Ohio Sate University at age 14. In college, he paid his way with earnings from checker exhibitions and tournaments. He received a bachelor's degree in 1950, a master's degree in 1953 and a doctorate in 1957. He taught mathematics at Florida State University 10 years and Florida A&M University 26 years. An evangelical Christian, he served as an elder and part-time minister at Tallahassee Christian Church for many years. Upon retirement , he moved to Conyers, Ga. To fulfill the most important element of his life, the study and teaching of the bible to his Christian brothers and sisters at Victory Tabernacle. He is survived by twin sister, Mary F. Clark of Humble, Tex.; 2 brothers, Ed Tinsley of Sarasota, Fla. And Joe Tinsley of Thornville, Oh.; nephew, Walter Clark of Bellingham, Mass.; niece Carol Huber and husband, John of Humble, Tex.; niece, Lisa Maddox and husband, Fred of Thornville, Oh.; and many cousins in Ky. And Oh. Funeral service will be held 1 p.m. Thursday April 6, at Victory Tabernacle, 1151 Flat Shoals Rd.; Conyers, Ga. Interment Green Lawn cemetery, Columbus, Oh. Arrangements by RUTHERFORD FUNERAL HOME, 2383 N. High St., Columbus, Oh.

I am sure it will be noted that Dr. Tinsley did not hold the World Champioship Title continuously from 1955 until his death but I copied his obituary just as it appeared in the news paper.

I'll let others post the years Dr. Tinsley held the title..."Pal" Bucker

[Jay H]

Great post Pal....
hard to believe it is almost thirteen years ago already.....

Regards

Jay H

[Alex_Moiseyev]

I'll let others post the years Dr. Tinsley held the title..."Pal" Bucker[/b]

He held title in 1955-1962, and 1979-1991. See Sixth, Pg. 173 for details.

M. Tinsley retired first time right after his match with D. Oldbury in 1958, but the fraternity continued to recognized him as a World Champion until next World Title Match in 1962. In 1975 W. Hellman passed away, but next 3-move World Title Match was held only in 1979.

Regards,

Alex

[Bob Murr]

Thank you for this post Pal, I know that you put much effort into researching this. Great job!

[Alex_Moiseyev]

This is certainly a great research, shame on me

3 years ago, when we had a National in Dublin, I tried to find out M. Tinsley grave in Columbus. I contacted with Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer, author of Chinook, and he told me that he believes that M. Tinsley body was taken to Texas where his sister lived and here were funeral.

I stopped my investigation at this time ... hence, not Pal !!!

I am going to visit the cemetery in the very nearest future and make a picture and take care of monument.

Pal, many thanks for your terrific job !

Alex

[Jay Bailey]

As a Florida State student, I had heard that Dr. Tinsley had taught here. I don't know of a "Tallahassee Christian Church," however, and my research hasn't turned up a church here by that name. Perhaps they meant a Christian church in Tallahassee.

[Palomino]

A couple of years ago I made a trip to Elberton Georgia on business and took the long way to get there route by first travelling the Columbus Ohio so as to visit Marion Tinsley's grave and take a picture of his grave marker. I then went on to the McDonald's in Whitsett, North Caroline where the Burlington Checker Club meets each Thursday night to play a few games of checkers with the guys there and then on to Elberton (pleasure before business) anyway I thought I had posted a picture of Dr. Tinsley's grave marker here on the forum after I had returned home but I discovered today that I had not, so here it is.

[Bill Salot]

Pal,

Can you make out the checker position on Tinsley's grave marker?

I would like to thinkl it is a significant one.

Bill Salot

[Palomino]

Sorry Bill, I can not.

I'm not even sure of how the board is suppose to be viewed, it looks as if the double corner is incorrectly on the left but with it skewed the way it is maybe we are supposed to turn our heads so that board is orientated correctly. From the picture I can't tell which squares are occupied by black and I do not remember. The stone was dirty and was difficult to read or even tell which squares were white. Before taking the picture I washed and dried the stone. I wish I had noted on paper the details of the position but did not.

I will speculate that a family member who took care of ordering the stone and did not specify and particular position.

[Ingo_Zachos]

I still find it hard to take pictures of gravestones, as there could hardly be something more private then a grave.

But on the other hand I did genealogical research in my families (you are always in at least two families, as you have a mother and a father, and you find more families the further you go) and graveyards were sometimes the only source of information, and I took pictures of them, and even placed messages in a bottle on some graves, in order to get in contact with forgotten relatives and close friends of the deceased.

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As for the board let me describe what I see:

On the pictures we can see a checker board with 64 squares, and the pieces are corretly placed on dark squares.
So given that details are proper, I assume that it could be a real position, and that the single corners are correctly placed (not like in Italian Dama), but are not alined to the letters on the stone.

However, assuming the above, I can not tell red from white pieces by sight, or see if there is any king. It looks like an endgame, but I can count 6 or 7 pieces/kings.
As the board is unnumbered, you can not tell where square 4 or square 29 is, and so the pieces could be placed in this way:

1 (or 32), 16 (17), 14 (19) , 24 (9), 22 (11), 25 (8) and a possible piece/king on 15 (18) , but this one is partly faded and can be an optical illusion as well.

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It could be a 3 vs. 3 endgame or a man down setting, but as a 3 vs. 3 with red on 1, 16
and 14 and white on 24, 22 and 25 or with colors reversed, it looks like an easy draw anyway, no matter who is to move.

But maybe this quiet position kind of represents the peace that Marion might find in his afterlife.

Greetinx from rainy Dortmund,

Ingo Zachos

[Danny_Alvarez]

Pal, congratulations on great research and great pictures.

[George Hay]

Let brotherly love continue. --Hebrews 13:1, KJV

Pal, thanks for sharing this with us!
The gravestone is very well designed with TLC.
--George Hay