Pottawatomie County Obituary
Bethel Cemetery

© Cooper Funeral Home
Date unknown
Reprinted with permission
Submitted by: TD

ORVILLE DONALD BROWN JR

July 29, 1925 - February 26, 2018

Orville Donald Brown, Jr. of Shawnee passed from this life on February 26, 2018, three months after the death of his wife, Mary Anna (Lane) Brown, who he missed dearly. He was born in Shawnee, OK, on July 29, 1925 to Chloe Hoover Brown and Orville Donald Brown, Sr. OD married Mary Anna on August 30, 1947. He served as a US Navy SeaBee during World War II from September 1943 until the war’s end in 1945. He served on Guadalcanal, Peleliu, and other islands in the South Pacific.

Brown was raised in Earlsboro, OK until the family moved to Shawnee when he was in high school so he could study carpentry at Shawnee High School. Drafted into WWII while still in high school, he returned after the war and graduated in 1947. He continued his education earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and biology from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford as well as a master’s degrees in zoology from the University of Arkansas. Ultimately he acquired over 300 hours of college credit at eight different colleges and universities during his lifetime. He worked as a fisheries biologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Texas. He was a teacher in junior and senior high schools in Dale, Prague, and Hominy, Oklahoma during his mid-career years, ending his teaching at Seward County Community College in Liberal, Kansas where he taught biology, anatomy and physiology. He and Mary retired to Shawnee in 1998. His hobbies were reading, fishing, and woodworking. He made over 40 wooden toys for his only grandson, Edward and numerous wood toys for friends and family. His works of kindness to others were done without fanfare but with love.

He is survived by his son, Orville D. Brown III (Suzanne), Mesa, AZ; grandson, Edward Donald Brown (Rachel Nash), Chandler, AZ; brother, Hubert Brown, Sr.; and sister-in-law, Betty Jean Shipp Brown, Tecumseh, OK. He will be missed by his nieces, Sheila Miller Mielke (Ron), Debbie Miller Adams-Thomas (Paul), Cheryl Kienholz Davis (Mike Dadik), Stephanie Kienholz Nestlerode (Bill), Janice Brown Spicer, Betty Dockery Brown, and many grandnieces and grandnephews.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Mary Anna Brown; his parents; and nephew, Hubert (Huey) Brown, Jr., as well his sisters-in-laws and their spouses, Barbara Lane and Lewis Cloman Miller, and Jean Lane Kienholz and Doug Cloyd.

Visitation will be from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Sunday, March 4, 2018 and continue through service time. Services will be held at 10:00 a.m., Monday, March 5, 2018 at Cooper Funeral Home Chapel with Kay Smith Nix officiating. The family will receive friends before and after the service at the funeral home. Interment will follow the service at Bethel Cemetery at the Bethel United Methodist Church, Bethel Acres, OK under the direction of Cooper Funeral Home of Tecumseh, Oklahoma. In lieu of flowers or other remembrances, the family requests donations be made to the Salvation Army or organizations benefiting children.