AUCTION: COUPLE'S LIVES REVISITED IN ONE AFTERNOON

This photograph of Pearl and Otis Shell was taken on their 50th wedding anniversary in 1984.

ADVANCE While the Methodist Women's Club served hot dogs, pie and soft drinks, the artifacts of Pearl and Otis Shell's lives were auctioned off Sunday afternoon under the maples that surround the white frame home they bought in 1934.

There was the prized Fosteria ware crystal service for 12, the figurine of a modern woman with plastic flowers sprouting from her cerebrum, the handmade quilts bought for sentimental reasons at handsome prices by a distant relative, and some old 78s "My Brand of Blues" by Marvin Rainwater, and "I'm Leaving my Trouble Behind" by Al Dexter and His Troopers.

Pearl Shell died in 1986, two years after the couple's 50th wedding anniversary. Though nearing 90, independent-minded Otis remained in the house alone except for an upstairs renter. He died last November, a few days after a fall in the house he'd occupied for nearly 60 years. He was 93.

The Shells had no children. In some such cases, the surviving relatives divvy everything up. This time, prior to the estate sale, the Shells' close kin picked the hearts' desires from among the prizes of more than 90 years of living.

By midafternoon during the nearly six-hour auction, 195 people and six antique collectors had registered for an opportunity to bid on the Jenny Lynn beds, the ice tongs, the baby clothes (relatives think they must have been Pearl's own), Otis' straw hats, and all the items Wagster Auction Service termed "too numerous to mention" in their flier.

"They didn't throw anything away," said Dorothy Shell, Otis's sister-in-law.

An inkling of who Pearl and Otis were inhabits these personal belongings that became lots at an auction.

There the black hall tree Otis made from one of the white porch columns.

Open a Holy Bible and find not a Bible but a how-to book on common-sense living and a tabloid clipping about a 7-foot-7-inch preacher and his 4-foot-11-inch wife.

Otis was a strict Baptist. Said Janell Reutzel, one of his nieces, "He didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't cuss and didn't cheat. Well, he cussed."

Pearl was a Methodist. Relatives say they went to each other's church on alternating Sundays.

Relatives say he quit going to church only when his hearing went bad.

In the backyard were his tools, the well-used stuff of every handyman's dreams. And on a trailer in the front yard, her collection of plates from every state in the union.

Though he operated Shell Brothers restaurant with his brother Doyle and later Shell's Grocery on Sturdivant Street in Advance for most of his working career, Otis liked working with his hands. Relatives say the now 80-year-old house had no basement when the Shells bought it from his uncle, Dr. James Hindman. Otis dug out the basement with his own two hands.

Those hands also could terrorize his little nieces and nephews with pinches. "He loved to tease," Reutzel said. "He'd pinch your knees until we'd cry."

Though only fishing gear was auctioned off, Otis also loved bird hunting. Relatives say Dizzy and Paul Dean and other members of the Cardinals Gashouse Gang used to hunt with him and frequented his restaurant during the off-season.

Before his sudden death, Otis sold his pampered 1965 Chevrolet Caprice to one of his nephews, Brad Graham of Cape Girardeau. The car, especially immaculate on the inside where Otis used plastic seat covers, has 90,000 miles and is equipped with a 396-cubic-inch engine and a four-barrel Holley carburetor.

"A Corvette engine and a Holley four-barrel to get to church on time," Graham said.

A sticker on the back window boasts: "Air Conditioned."

Otis came to Advance after the 1917 cyclone tore through the hilltop family farmhouse in Dongola about 10 miles from Advance. Relatives say the men were out working in the fields when the storm came up, and Otis's father yelled, `Grab hold of the fence, boys." Their mother, Della Mae was killed in the house and a sister was injured.

Darrell Westbrook, now a Chesterfield Small Business Administration employee, is a nephew who came from Indianapolis to live with the Shells for three years while in high school.

Westbrook's two daughters, Carrie and Julie, said Otis was like a grandfather to them.

As auctioneer Travis Birdsong and his whooping ringmen moved around the yard, bit by bit of the Shells' belongings disappeared, bought by a few friends and relatives but mostly by strangers.

Westbrook bid for and won some of Pearl's plates. Jan Wittenborn, another niece who lives in Murphysboro, Ill., snagged some glassware.

There is something happy and something sad about such an event, said "Salty" Zimmerman, who had known Otis most of his life. "It's a blessing to some people and a heartbreak for others.

"It's hard to give up stuff they've lived with all their lives."

Westbrook said the day was "the end of a chapter of our lives that was very important to us."

With Otis's death, Dorothy has acquired a distinction she bears cheerfully. "He was the end of the father's children, and the mates are all gone," she said. "I'm the only one left."

The house has been inherited by two of the Shells' relatives and will be sold. "But it still smells like Uncle Otie's house," Graham said.