Oscar Jerome Clements

May 22, 1923 - June 20, 2016

Oscar Jerome Clements (O.J., Sonny, Papa, Pop, PawPaw, Grandpa), a Christian man, passed away on Monday, June 20, 2016 at the age of 93. He outlived all his thirteen brothers and sisters. Please join our celebration of his life at Moore Funeral Home, 1219 N. Davis Drive, Arlington TX 76012. Visitation will be from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, 2016. Services will be Friday, June 24, 2016 at noon.

Oscar was born in a covered wagon as his parents, George Edward and Bertha, were traveling with their children and all their belongings and livestock from a ranch in New Mexico to a bigger piece of property in Texas. You may wonder why a covered wagon was being used long after the days of wagon trains. His Papa never discarded anything that could be refurbished and that old wagon was perfect for carrying household goods during the move. Oscar’s birth took place on the side of the road just outside the town of Edith, TX and that - as he was proud to proclaim - made him a sixth generation Texan. He had ancestors who settled in the Republic of Texas before February 19, 1846 when power was turned over to the State of Texas.

His father died of a heart attack days after Oscar turned nine. Since his older siblings had moved off to marry and start their own families he became the man of the house. He stopped going to school in second grade and did his best to provide for his mother and younger brother and sisters during the Depression.

Providing for family continued to be a great passion his entire life. He was never without a job. Some of his occupations included ranching, farming, training horses, shearing sheep, lumber jacking, overseeing the harvesting of fields and orchards where he’d bought fruits and vegetables from farmers so he could package and sell the crops to a large grocery chain at a profit, working for (and being educated by) The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), serving in the Army Air Forces during World War II, driving a Mobil gas truck, owning a service station, moving all over the country while working on oil rigs, and finally spending over thirty years as a machinist supervisor at Pitt’s Industries in Carrollton.

Nineteen year old Oscar married Iva Dee in 1942 and from that union came Phyllis in 1944 (while new daddy was away fighting in WW II) followed by Pennie in 1952. Iva died suddenly of a heart attack in 1971. Grandchildren from his first marriage: Jerry Don (who predeceased Oscar), Robin, Kate, and Grant. In 1973 Oscar married Thelma Drye who already had three children: Glenda, Ron, and Janice. Grandchildren from his second marriage: Darla, Stephen, Mark, Ben, John, and Amanda. Oscar was widowed for the second time in 2000 when Thelma passed away. Oscar also has great and great-great grandchildren.

In between his hours of paid employment Oscar told stories and puttered. He measured, sawed, nailed, hammered, planed, whittled, glued, stamped, embossed, repaired, and fabricated just about anything that could be made or fixed. He taught his younger grandsons how to follow in his creative footsteps. One of his grandsons said, “Grandpa was a hero in a time when there weren’t many heroes. He taught me how to be a man.”

In his later years he enjoyed exercising, playing cards and dominoes, eating, talking, watching the Rangers while doing leather work, and flirting with women of all ages, We’ll miss him and his laughter.