Beckham County, OK - Obits: Erasmus G. Thurmond, 1925
Saturday, 07 February 2009
Submitted by: delma25@pldi.net (Delma Tindell)

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THURMOND, ERASMUS G.
(22 Oct 1925, Southwest Press, Elk City, Beckham County, OK):
The word was quietly passed on the streets of Elk City last Tuesday
morning that "Uncle Jube" was dead.  His many friends had expected the
word, for he has been suffering greatly the past week from cancer of the
stomach.
E. G. Thurmond was born in Kentucky, September 18, 1844, and moved with
his parents to that part of Texas which is now the city of Fort Worth. 
Here he met Miss Amand Naff Harmon whom he married fifty-seven years ago,
next Sunday.
In 1885, Mr. Thurmond and his wife moved to near the Mobetie army post,
where they became successful ranchers.  At the opening of the
Cheyenne-Arapaho strip they located at the town of Cheyenne and
established the first store and bank.  On September 4, 1902, they moved to
Elk City, when she was in her swaddling clothes - mostly tents.
In 1880, Mr. and Mrs. Thurmond took Lizzie King, a little colored child
five years of age to raise.  Lizzie is now fifty years old, but has always
been a fixture in the Thurmond's hospitable home.
The parents of Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Thurmond all lived to the ripe old age
of eighty years or better, says Mrs. Thurmond.
There are five sons and one daughter, all of whom are living, to mourn
their father's death.  The five men were here at their father's death, but
Mrs. Florence Smith Ganaway, of Clinton, Oklahoma, was ill in a Clinton
hospital and could not possibly be here.  The boys are I C., E. K., and A.
L. of Oklahoma City, O. H. of Clinton and J. P. of Elk City.
Funeral services were conducted by Rev. Mitchell at the Thurmond home on
West Broadway.  Interment was at West Fairlawn Wednesday afternoon,
October 21, 1925.  Mr. Thurmond was eighty-one years of age when he died,
early Tuesday morning, October 20, 1925.  Besides the close friends and
relatives many citizens honored the deceased by their presence at the
funeral.  Judge Harrison, an old friend of Mr. Thurmond, spoke a few words
of history and sympathy for the bereaved.  The floral offerings were
gorgeous, did homage to this grand old man, whom all respected and many
loved.
(22 Oct 1925, Texola Tribune, Texola, Beckham Co, OK):
E. G. Thurmond, or better known perhaps as "Uncle Jube", died at the
family home in Elk City on Monday last, at the ripe old age of 81 years,
after a lingering illness of some several weeks.
"Uncle Jube" Thurmond came to Western Oklahoma in an early day settling at
Cheyenne in Roger Mills County and there engaged in the business of
farming and ranching and the general mercantile business and later seeing
the need of a bank in his community organized the first bank ever
established in Cheyenne and among the first in all Western Oklahoma.  He
was prosperous and his business of banking expanded until the Thurmand
(sic) banks are know throut (sic) the southwest as the biggest bankers in
this section.  The local bank is one of the many Thurmond banks in western
Oklahoma and out of respect to the "father of the institution", it
remained closed all the day Wednesday and officials of the local
institution attended the funeral services held in Elk City.
Several sons and daughters and the wife remain to mourn the loss of
husband and father, his demise being the first of the immediate family.

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