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Memory Gardens Cemetery
Pittsburg, Oklahoma
Bishop Funeral Home
Submitted by: Carol Spear Rice
Hazel McClellan Beckham, a long-time resident of McAlester, passed away peacefully at age 97 on November 8, 2023, in Tulsa.
Viewing will be noon to 6:00 p.m. Sunday, November 12, 2023 at Bishop Funeral Service and Crematory, McAlester.
Funeral service will be 2: 00 p.m. Monday, November 13, 2023 at Bishop Chapel of Memories officiated by Rev. Rodney Briggs. Interment will follow at Memory Gardens Memorial Park Cemetery, McAlester.
She was born in Canadian, Oklahoma to Violet Prather and Gus McClellan, married Dranon Edgar Beckham on April 26, 1942 and has lived in Bache, Highhill and in Wildwoode, New Jersey.
As a seamstress most of her life at Seamproof/Komar and Hunt's Department Store in McAlester, she had attended the First Baptist Church since 1948, teaching preschoolers there for 26 years and served on the Building and Bereavement Committees. She was active in the Women's Missionary Union and started up the Sewing Room, making quilts for burn victims, lap robes for nursing homes and baby quilts since 1990. In her last years, she made quilts monthly for the Battered Women's Shelter in Tulsa.
Working 6 days a week, she still had time to be President of the William Gay Elementary School PTA, led a troop of Brownies graduating to Girl Scouts for 3 years, was on a bowling league, was very active in Pittsburg County Fairs, winning blue ribbons for her sewing entries and canned foods; was Citizen of the Year in 1996 and Home Maker of the Year in 1997. She loved her grandchildren and sewing and gardening. Her husband, D.E. Beckham built dozens of homes in McAlester after he retired from the Navy Ammunition Depot and she decorated the houses and helped daily to clean up after the construction workers.
Preceding her in death were her parents and three siblings, her husband, a daughter, Dawn Elaine Timmons and a grandson, Jason Wortham.
She is survived by a brother, Jack Lightle or Maricopa, Arizona, a daughter, Mary Afton Monroe, grandchildren, Kelli Belt, Roger and Walter Timmons all of McAlester, Scott Timmons of Shawnee, and Angela Almond of Vilonia, Arkansas and numerous great and great-great grandchildren.
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