Graveside service will be at 11 a.m., Tuesday, June 26, at Crestwood Cemetery for Evelyn Tarvin, 98, a lifelong resident of Gadsden, who passed away on Wednesday, June 20, 2018. The Rev. Jerry Ponder will officiate. Crestwood Funeral Home is in charge.

Mrs. Tarvin was born on September 25, 1919, to Seab and Lillie (Beacham) McCarver. Very early she became a member of North Gadsden First United Methodist Church and was among its oldest members when the church was shuttered around 2008.

A 1937 graduate of Gaston High School, she served as manager and player on one of the school's pioneering girls' basketball teams. In 2012, when she was 92, Gaston honored Mrs. Tarvin by naming its new girls' athletic trophy case after her.

In 1939, she married the love of her life, Paul Tarvin, a painter and wallpaperer. A natural-born businesswoman, she opened Tarvin's Grocery Store on Ewing Avenue in North Gadsden in 1940 and managed it for the next thirty years.

Shortly after her husbands' death (1968), she closed the store. In her retirement she devoted herself to her grandchild and her great-grandchildren. As pastimes, she enjoyed gardening, fishing, playing rummy and Rook (games at which she excelled even into her 90's), and was a passionate fan of the Atlanta Braves.

She will be remembered for her love of and devotion to her family and her church, and for her high business ethics.

Those preceding Mrs. Tarvin in death were her mother and father, her husband, her brother Harley, and her sisters Neomie Downey, Janice McCarver, and Joyce Harrelson.

She leaves behind to cherish her memory: Her daughter Pauline Williamson (widow of Charles, former Attalla Fire Chief); her son William Tarvin, Ph.D.; her granddaughter Tara (Perry) Hodge;her great grandchildren Katie Campbell, Joshua Campbell and Charlie Hodge, her step-grandchildren, Madison Aderholt, Chelsey Hodge, and Taylor Hodge; and a host of cousins.

The family invites Mrs. Tarvin's relatives and friends to join them at the graveside service, and requests that in lieu of flowers, they make a donation to a charity of their choice.