Ross County OhArchives Obituaries.....Cokonougher, Cecil Lloyd September 23 1966 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ohfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ralph W. Cokonougher rcokon@hotmail.com July 25, 2004, 10:22 am 24 Sept. 1966 Chillicothe, Ohio "Gazette" CECIL L. COKONOUGHER. GREENFIELD - Cecil Lloyd Cokonougher, 49, of Lyndon, Route 1, died at 8 p.m. Thursday at his residence. He was born April 19, 1917 in Ross County to John and Amelia Miller Cokonougher and was never married. A member of the VFW Post in Chillicothe, Mr. Cokonougher was a veteran of World War II and had served overseas. Surviving are three brothers, John Jr. of Chillicothe, Route 3, Howard and Herbert, both of Lyndon, Route 1, and a sister, Mrs. Melvin Barnhart of Greenfield. The funeral will be at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Murray Funeral Home here with the Rev. Harold Braley officiating. Burial will be in South Salem cemetery. Friends may call at the funeral home after 2 p.m. Saturday. Additional Comments: Cecil was my uncle. He was a big and tall man, with an imposing figure, and was both sociable and personable. He was intelligent, and had continued to self-educate himself after he finished high school. Cecil was kind and generous, but, at the same time, he spoke his mind, and nobody dared mess with him. He never married, and died a bachelor. I never heard of him even dating. My father did mention once that he thought Cecil had fallen in love with an Italian girl when he had been stationed in Italy during World War II, but the relationship had failed, and Cecil never pursued a woman ever again. Cecil was very well known in the community through his various roles as a relative, a farmer, a veteran, an election poll worker, and a mailman. His reputation in the community was of the highest. I never knew of anyone during his lifetime to say anything less than anything good about him. Cecil proved his character to me several times. In Cecil’s day, neighbors helped each other with their farm work. One summer, Cecil, my father, the Comers, and I were helping a neighbor by the name of Sherman put up his hay. I was only 15 or 16 years old at the time. To my surprise, my father and Cecil decided to have me drive Cecil’s Ford tractor. They told me to get up on the tractor, put it into gear, and drive it up Mr. Sherman’s driveway. Unfortunately, they forgot that I had never been on a tractor before, and didn’t know a gear shift from a clutch pedal. My father thought I didn’t need any lessons. When I expressed doubts, he told me to “just do it”. I moved the gear shift into place and the tractor moved. It moved straight backwards in full reverse, with the rear wheel first hitting Mr. Sherman’s mailbox post, and then crushing his brand new $50.00 mailbox flatter than a pancake. For a moment, we were all in shock. It was not the ordinary $2.00 mailbox I had flattened, but probably the most expensive mailbox in the area. Nobody said much to me, they just had me get off the tractor and we all went back to work. I expected to pay for the mailbox out of my earnings, but my uncle Cecil took responsibility for the incident himself, and paid Mr. Sherman for the mailbox out of his own pocket. He said he considered the incident as much his fault as anybody’s, because he shouldn’t have let me be put on the tractor without first making sure I knew how to drive it. I think that somewhere in his background, he also knew what it felt like to be a youngster placed into a position where he had to do something for which he hadn’t been properly prepared. He understood. And, by the way, Mr. Sherman’s next mailbox was an ordinary $2.00 mailbox, just like everybody else had. A few years later, when I was a senior in high school, my social studies teacher required each student to read a weekly national news magazine to learn about government and current events, My parents were poor, and we couldn’t afford a subscription to a magazine. We also lived so far out in the country, that it was impossible to get the magazine in a timely manner from the library. To compensate, Cecil generously delivered his news magazine subscription to me every week for me to do my homework, before he even looked at the magazine himself. He knew that my parents couldn’t afford to buy me a subscription, so he helped me out as best as he could by letting me use his subscription. With his contribution, I not only passed the course, but I got an “A” too. Perhaps the most significant example of Cecil’s character occurred when he helped me get a college scholarship. A local couple had endowed my high school with a college scholarship fund, with the proceeds to be given to one or more financially challenged high school graduates of good character and good grades. The scholarship was intended for financially poor students who otherwise would have had a hard time paying for college, and the school board was charged with deciding who would get the scholarships. I applied for one of the scholarships, and received enough money to pay my tuition through the first year of college. Several years passed before I found out that the schoolboard had been reluctant to give me a scholarship, and had even considered turning me down, thinking it would be a waste of money to give a scholarship to someone whose family was too poor to help him finish college after the scholarship money ran out. In other words, they thought me too poor to receive a helping hand for the poor. Cecil knew a couple of the people on the school board, and when he heard what was happening, he raised holy hell, and then declared that the board didn’t need to worry about his nephew, because he personally would see that I had enough money to finish college one way or another. Those who knew my uncle knew that when he said something, he meant it. You could depend on him to keep his word. So, with his influence, promise, and character reference, the board decided to take a chance on me. I was granted the scholarship. My uncle Cecil died before I finished college, but I am happy to say that I fulfilled his faith in me. I did finish college, just as he expected, but without his support, and without his confidence in me, it would have been a much harder struggle to do so. Cecil died young. He was only 48 when he died. Until the time of his death, he had no significant health problems. One beautiful autumn evening, Cecil’s friend, Ralph Clyburn, an undertaker and ambulance driver, received a call from Cecil. Cecil told him, “I’m sick. I need you to come and get me.” Ralph replied that he would be right there. The drive to Cecil’s house took about 20 to 30 minutes. When Ralph pulled up to Cecil’s house, he saw Cecil sitting outside on the steps of the front porch. Cecil looked normal. Ralph supposed that he had come out to wait for him, and hoped that the call had been a false alarm. The truth became obvious though, when Ralph walked up to Cecil. Despite looking natural, Cecil was dead. He had suffered a fatal aneurysm and had called his own undertaker. The following article, date unknown, appeared in the Chillicothe, Ohio “Gazette” after the death of Cecil Cokonougher: “CECIL COKONOUGHER ESTATE IS $29,213. Cecil Cokonougher, Lyndon, Route 1, has left a $29,213.38 estate according to the inventory and appraisal filed in Probate Court by Attorney Gerald E. Radcliffe. Mr. Cokonougher died intestate, leaving three brothers and a sister. They are Mrs. Melvin Barnhart, Greenfield; Howard and Herbert Cokonougher, both of Lyndon Route 1, and John H. Cokonougher Jr., Route 3, who has been named executor of the estate. The estate includes $9,882.23 in personal goods, $61.02 in cash, $1,770.13 in accounts and debts receivable, and $17,500 in real estate which involves more than 226 acres of land in Buckskin Township.” File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/oh/ross/obits/ob391cokonoug.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/ohfiles/ File size: 8.3 Kb