Henry Carroll LaMaster was named after the two counties - Henry and Carroll - in Kentucky where his parents were born before they moved to the Perryton area in 1909.

Hank, as he was known, got a lot of mileage out of the joke that it could have been a lot worse - he could have been named after the county where he was born. Imagine going through life with the first name of Ochiltree.

"Needless to say, they were running out of names by then," said Joe LaMaster of his uncle, the seventh of 10 children of W.B. and Pauline LaMaster.

It was in many ways a remarkable family, one that did two things no other family in the Texas Panhandle accomplished. Yet, because the LaMasters weren't wealthy, didn't own a large ranch, or no one was ever elected to political office, few outside of Perryton would really know it.

But this was a family of humble service and education, two areas that don't necessarily draw a lot of attention, which is probably the way most of the LaMasters would have wanted it anyway.

For one, Walter, Cyrus, Giltner, Kathryn, Kenneth, Leroy, Henry, Joseph, Phillip and Pauline - every last one of them - received a college degree. Hard to believe now, harder to believe then.

In the throes of the Depression and Dust Bowl, threatened by looming war, it was a time when money was scarce and future was scary. Yet, all 10 children found the wherewithal to graduate from college. For Hank, he got a degree in agronomy from Texas Tech in 1942.

Then he did what all his brothers and sister had done. He joined the service, enlisting in the Navy shortly after graduation. He was only fulfilling a family duty that was as numerous as it was impressive.

Nine of the 10 LaMaster children served during World War II. The only who did not was Pauline, and that was because she was giving birth to a child.

"That was just the type of people they were," said Richard LaMaster, Hank's son. "They didn't stay after their times was up. But they joined to do a job, to do their part. It was just their mindset, I guess."

Walter, Leroy, and Henry were in the Navy, Cyrus and Joseph in the Army Air Corps, Giltner, Phillip and Kenneth in the Army, Kathryn in the Army WACs. Seven of the nine saw combat.

The LaMasters were one of two families in the country - the other in Illinois - who had nine siblings serving in World War II. A simple plaque in the VFW hall in Perryton recognized them, one of the few items to survive a fire in the 1970s.

Imagine a mother worried about one son in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now imagine one worried about seven. Joseph, born two years after Hank, did not make it home, killed while flying a combat mission over Austria in 1945. He was buried in an American cemetery in southern Italy.

How resilient the people were during those times. Hank's mother, in a letter to him while he was on a tanker in the South Pacific two weeks after Joseph's death: "...We also know that Joseph was doing the thing he wanted to do. He need not have joined the Army in the first place had he not wanted to...Well, as to other news..."

Hank's tanker managed to avoid Japanese kamikaze pilots toward the war's end. He returned home where he and Mary would have three children. He dabbled in ranching and real estate downstate before moving to Amarillo in 1960 where he was in insurance, real estate, taught jet mechanics at Amarillo Air Force Base, and was a petroleum land man.

But mainly he just continued to serve. He logged more than 13,300 volunteer hours over 26 years up to 2014 at the Thomas Creek Veterans Affairs Medical Center, from filing and pulling X-rays to pushing wheelchairs.

"My dad has an extended view of family," Richard said. "He thought of all vets as family."

Even in his 80s, he could not slow down. An advertisement in the Globe-News caught his eye, that crossing guards were needed for Amarillo elementary schools. He walked five blocks to the nearest school, applied for a position and was sent to a school across town.

Morning and afternoon, in good weather and bad, for several years, Hank escorted young children across the street. He loved it.

Last week at his memorial service at the VA, he was described as a "meek man." The word is mistakenly a synonym for weak and scared. But it's one of patience, kindness, gentleness, a quiet strength.

That was Hank LaMaster, 93, the last of an extraordinary Texas Panhandle family of 12, all achieving much, serving greatly, asking for nothing in return.

Jon Mark Beilue is an AGN Media columnist. He can be reached at jon.beilue@amarillo.com or 806-345-3318. His blog and "Out of the Beilue" video are on amarillo.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jonmarkbeilue.