Max Leo Parr
Max Parr heard “Taps” playing early Sunday morning, Feb. 8th, 2015, followed by an eternal flight.
Eighty-one years before, on a Sunday afternoon in 1933, Max was born May 21st to Eudora Pearl (Freeman) Parr and Otto Lester Parr at their home place northwest of Arapaho on Barnitz Creek. He joined nine other members of his family.
During his early school years Max attended the Womble School three-quarters of a mile west of his home. In the eighth grade he transferred to the Arapaho School along with his younger brother, Alvin.
He especially liked the FFA program and their advisor, Dale Anderson.
During his senior year, several junior and sen-ior boys convinced the superintendent, Bonnie McElmurry, to let them enroll in FHA (Future Homemakers of America). The instructor, Mrs. Bob Meshew, even took the class to Oklahoma City where they visited several department stores to view men’s clothing and appropriate suit styles, and to see how marketing was conducted.
Graduation in May of 1951 had to be postponed for several days because of a flood.
That fall Max enrolled in Oklahoma A&M College (now Oklahoma State University) at Stillwater. His classes were electrical, diesel mechanics, and welding, and he received an Associate Degree in 1953.
Max was employed by the International Harvester dealer in Cordell but worked only 10 days due to the death of his father. His brother, Alvin, came to the field where he was working on machinery and brought the news. Max returned home to assist his mother and brother with estate matters, feeding cattle, harvesting wheat and planting crops.
At that time he was classified 1-A, the top category for drafting into the United States armed forces, and in November of 1954 he and three other Custer County men were escorted to the bus station where they started their active duty service in the U.S. Army. The others were Dean Adams, Leon Hoffman and Luther Newman.
They were sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, a very rugged place outside El Paso. Base housing let in the winter snow which covered their blankets some nights.
After completing basic training, Max was sent to Fort Belvoir at Alexandria, Va., across the river from Washington, D.C., for electric motor and generator academy. When that was completed, he was shipped to Pirmasens, Germany, for 18 months, where he worked with former German soldiers who included tankers, submariners and possibly ex-SS troops.
His assignment was to help the Germans rebuild their country under the Marshall Plan. A daily discussion point for the Germans was that they did not lose the war, they just ran out of supplies.
Max returned to New York in August, 1956, on a ship loaded with soldiers. They were ordered to anchor outside the harbor for the night. The next morning was crystal clear, and as the ship glided by the Statue of Liberty, Max experienced a profound moment in his life, as he knew he was back home. He always told the woman who would become his wife, Wilma Collins, that he had another girlfriend in New York – one who was holding a big torch for him.
That finished his active duty, but he still had six years of inactive duty when he could be called back at any time. There were tense moments when the Bay of Pigs scenario took place in Cuba near the end of his eight years of military exposure. But that too passed, and on Oct. 31, 1962, he was honorably discharged.
Max returned home to resume farming and ranching on some of his parents’ land that he purchased from his dad’s estate.
And on May 5, 1957, he and Wilma were united in marriage at the First Methodist Church in Clinton, Okla. In 1961 their new home was completed and they moved from Clinton to the farm, where they remained until shortly before “Taps” was sounded.
Their sons, Curtis and Tim, were born April 1, 1962, and July 2, 1964, respectively. Both worked with their dad in all phases of the farming business. He ran stocker calves and a cow-calf operation, along with the usual wheat harvesting, plus cutting and baling alfalfa and transporting it to destinations in Texas. Both sons were awarded the State Farmer Degree their senior years.
Max was addicted to building machinery. He always had ideas for tools and machines that would improve soil conditions for planting crops.
He continued farming until 1995, when he began driving a semi hauling propane/fertilizer for Acord Companies of Chandler. Then in 2003 he began having health problems which resulted in his first stent. Later Dr. Dwaine Schmidt would implant five more.
Max had rented out his land so he decided he would play with horses for a hobby. He would use a team and hook them to a buggy or wagon and go trotting down the road with a slow-moving emblem on the back that said “Children at Play.”
Somehow, he accumulated too many horses and Wilma couldn’t always help him sort and work with them, so he sold most of them over time and enjoyed visiting with people who came from Texas, Kansas and southern Oklahoma to buy them.
Preceding him in death was an infant daughter in 1960; his parents; bro-thers Otis, Ray, Elmer, Lorin, J.R. and Alvin; sisters Vera Coulson, Verna Waltrip and Velma Wells; and granddaughter Lori Beth Parr.
Survivors include his wife, Wilma; sons Curtis Max and his wife, Peggy, of Caddo, and Tim Mark and his wife, Heather, of Arapaho; grandchildren Adrianna, Anthony, Natalie, Clayton, Julie, Katie and Gene; and many nieces and nephews.
Burial was in the Arapaho Cemetery with military honors.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Arapaho Alumni Assn. at Box 182, Arapaho, OK 73620; the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation; and/or the First Christian Church of Clinton.