Marriage and Later Life
In 1951, Mayfield married the former Dorothy McLain in Hart in Castro County. Active in community affairs, he was a former president of the Dimmitt Rodeo Association and was a member of the Fair Board. He was also affiliated with the Panhandle Blue Grass Association. He was Baptist. Two weeks prior to Mayfield's death, the International Blue Grass Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky, interviewed him in Dimmitt in preparation for a forthcoming documentary on the Mayfield musical family.
For much of his adult life, Mayfield was a welder for cattle feedlots. He and his wife supported student scholarships for those pursuing the study of Bluegrass music at South Plains College in Levelland west of Lubbock. South Plains honored Herbert and Smokey Mayfield in a special ceremony in 1989 as pioneers of Bluegrass music. Susan Dailey, the recipient of a Mayfield scholarship in 1993, recalled Mayfield as "an inspiration to me as a mandolin student.... The stories of his early musical years on the ranch also fascinated me as a musician and as a visual artist.... I feel fortunate to have been acquainted with Herb. He was a wonderful man.... "
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