Onial Keith "Tom" Garroutte

A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Tom was born at home in Gideon, OK to Homer Bewley Garroutte and Georgia Pearl Corn Garroutte. He lived in several locations along Fourteen Mile Creek, where he helped his family farm and raise a few cattle and mules, while attending a one-room school. In subsequent years, he liked to entertain all comers with impromptu guided tours of the area, telling stories while hiking to the site of his families' one-room log cabin behind Parris Cemetery, sloshing up the creek seeking the old cave where the treasure was buried (still looking!), or roaming the hills of his grandmother's Cherokee allotment property.

When he was a teenager, Tom's family moved to Tulsa where he attended Daniel Webster High while also working there as custodian to pay educational and personal expenses. Encouraged by pastor Reverend Crider, he earned a degree from Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Johnson City, NY. There he met and wed fellow student Patricia Anne Lippert of Warners, NY, with whom he would celebrate 72 years of marriage. After completing a Master's in Education from SUNY Cortland, he spent his professional career as teacher and school administrator in the Candor Central School district in upstate New York, with a special eye toward ensuring that children arriving in his classrooms with few advantages left with more.

Tom's inclination toward homely pursuits was enlivened by a taste for adventure in the form of travels around the country by RV and one very special trip to Germany for a son's wedding. In retirement, he and Pat relocated to northwest Arkansas, where he brought energy and expertise to another son's organic beef cattle operation and worked to enhance elder care at tribal clinics by

donating labor to research projects that his daughter conducted in collaboration with Cherokee Nation Health Services. Tom's last move brought him back to Tahlequah, Oklahoma where he spent his final decade indulging fondness for the Go Ye Village book club, local culture and history, and the Cherokee stomp dance.

Tom is survived by wife Patricia and children Chief Engineer Brian Lee Garroutte of the U.S. Merchant Marine (Dora), Colonel Kevin Keith Garroutte of the U.S. Army (Emma), and Dr. Eva Marie Garroutte of the Boston College Dept. of Sociology (Xavier Lopez). Pat and Tom's children remain ever indebted to his talents at stuffing all five of us into one double bed for night-time storytelling; at building closets, rope swings, treehouses, furniture, and homes; at repairing bicycles, cars and appliances with scavenged parts; at growing food, and chasing down wayward cattle and research participants; and at unfailing rescue from all manner of adversity. Standing ready to carry on his legacy of tireless work, resourcefulness, advancement through education, never throwing anything away, and enthusiasm for table games and all things Cherokee are grandchildren William Jehu Garroutte (Emily), Jacqueline Patricia Helmke (Doug), Danielle Marie Garroutte (Brian), Ingrid Wass (Daniel), and Arthur Leander Garroutte (Emily), together with great-grandchildren Jack Silver Helmke and Josephine Jean Walela Garroutte. You showed us the treasure, Dad, but it wasn't in the old cave.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3)