The Families of Oscar Marion and Walter A. Hadley

Oscar Marion Hadley {December 24, 1884 near Franklin, Tennessee} and Walter A. Hadley, {born on a farm near Columbia, Tennessee} were the children of W. M. Hadley and Fannie {Morrow} Hadley. They were orphaned at an early age and came to Stroud, Oklahoma in their late teens, with very few possessions. They worked for grocery stores and any work they could find until they offered superintendent and office manager of the Stroud Cotton Oil Mill. This was one of the largest industries in Lincoln County at the time. They remained with this business until the demise of cotton and the depression of the late 1920's.

Walter A. Hadley married Kathrine Hulme from Tennessee, and they had three daughters, Faye Delle, Helen, and Gertrude. Faye Delle Hadley Ballew of Midwest City and Gertrude Hadley Monroe of Albuquerque, New Mexico are still living.

Oscar Marion Hadley, my father, in 1906, married Leela Anne Stephenson, born December 29, 1884, at Stanberry, Missouri, one of five girls in the Sam Stephenson family. Their first child, Leon Hadley, was born in 1908. He attended the University of Oklahoma, but in his last year, 1930, was killed in an automobile accident. Their daughter, Geraldine, was born June 19, 1910.

Oscar Hadley served as mayor of Stroud, and as a member of the Stroud school board for a number of years. He died at the age of 52 of tuberculosis on February 8, 1936, the same day his first grandchild was born. Leela Anne died in 1946 of breast cancer. There was no penicillin or cure for either disease at that time.

© Geraldine Hadley Jondahl
Lincoln County Oklahoma History  
Page 818-189.