Obituaries : * Lee Hughes; Vegetable Grower, Navy Careerist

Lee Hughes believed a string bean had to be picked just right.

It had to be gently separated from the plant, not yanked like most people do. He grew his right thumbnail a bit longer than the others to ensure a clean separation.

Until his death Monday at 89, Hughes spent much of his time tilling soil on a quarter-acre plot at his home in Somis. The retired Navy careerist died from complications following a recent hip surgery.

“Poppy was always teasing us grandchildren that we weren’t doing it right,” grandson Garry Hughes said. “He said we were bruising and thrashing the plant. He said you had to take your time and pick slower.”

Lee Hughes was born to a Cherokee mother and a German-Welsh father in the Oklahoma Territory in 1906, one year before the territory gained statehood. Raised in a shack with a hardened dirt floor, Hughes quit the fifth grade to help his father grow beans in the dusty red clay of the family farm.

Hughes, who had worked as a radio operator aboard the USS Yorktown during World War II, survived the Battle of Midway. After his ship sank, Hughes stayed afloat in a life vest for 12 hours until he was rescued.

He retired in 1970 from the Point Mugu naval base, where he had worked as an equipment specialist in the Naval Target Department.

Hughes’ motto was: “If you can’t eat it, don’t grow it.” He concentrated his love for the soil on growing big, healthy vegetables--beans, black-eyed peas, string beans, squash, carrots and corn, according to his grandson.

“There are hundreds of quarts of vegetables in his big chest freezer,” Garry Hughes said.

Sadly, it was an accident in his garden that led to Lee Hughes’ recent surgery.

Hughes lost his balance trying to remove a weed, fell and broke his hip. He never fully recovered from the operation last week.

“He was looking forward to the (expected) rains this week because it loosens the soil,” said Garry Hughes. “He was concerned that the corn and beans be planted in two weeks. The timing was important, he said.”

The younger Hughes, whose home is adjacent to his grandfather’s property, said he plans to continue to tend the garden.

Hughes is survived by his grandson Garry of Somis, his granddaughter Denise Simmons of Newbury Park, great-grandchildren Jennifer, Gregory and Stacy Simmons of Newbury Park and brothers Emette Hughes of Chandler, Ariz., and Buster Hughes of Wellington, Tex.

Services will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at the Conejo Mountain Memorial Park.