Biographical Sketch written by Bill's mother, Jewel Ora Gamble LaRue in 1966.

Billy Bob LaRue was born November 10, 1933. Like the other children he was a member of the Methodist Church and attended all his school at the Stafford School. He was very active in 4-H Club work and was president of his club for four years and president of the county club for two years. This work enabled him to make many trips, earn many ribbons and awards and he gained invaluable experience in public speaking, meeting the public and he is very much a leader.
He also won awards in driver training contests going from Stafford to Southwestern, to Stillwater, to Oklahoma City where he won.
He was the "first" young man model in the yearly Fashion Style Shows at Clinton which have continued to have men models since then.
He graduated from high school in May of 1951 and in July of 1951 he married Oleta Janell Weichel of Stafford. He worked for Whites Auto Stores in Hobart, Oklahoma and Big Spring, Texas.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps January 4, 1953. He was in the audit and inventory department. He has traveled in many foreign places as well as all over the U.S.A. He has been to Alaska, Japan and Korea. He spent 13 months in Okinawa and lived three years in Hawaii. He made good at every chance of promotion and is now a lieutenant stationed at the present time (1966) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and will make the Marine Corps his career.
He and his wife have one son, Michael Ray LaRue who was born July 28, 1957.


OBITUARY for Billy Bob LaRue from The Clinton Daily News, January 24, 1997.

Bill LaRue services Saturday
Funeral services for Bill LaRue, 63, Clinton, will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church at Clinton with Rev. Larry King officiating.
LaRue died Wednesday at Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City. He was born on Nov. 10, 1933 in Stafford, the son of Sam J. and Jewel (Gamble) LaRue. He was reared and received his education at Stafford, graduating from High School there.
On July 5, 1951, LaRue was married to Oleta Weichel at Clinton. Shortly after their marriage, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, retiring in 1973 with the rank of captain.
While in the Marines, he received the Combat Action Ribbon, Vietnam Service Medal, Bronze Star, Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Commendation and the Presidential Unit Citation.
Following his retirement from the military, they returned to Clinton where he started a cabinet making/furniture restoration business called Timberlove.
He also associated with the Southwest Playhouse community theatre from 1975 to the present, serving on the theatre board for nine years, including three as president. He worked as master carpenter at the Playhouse for 16 years and received three Best Actor awards, one Best Supporting Actor award and two Best Character Actor awards during his years of stage appearances.
LaRue also attended southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford for one and a half years, and served as a judge for the Alpha Psi Omega dramatic fraternity at SWOSU for four years. He also was a past member of the board of directors of the Western Oklahoma Ballet Theatre.
LaRue also was a member of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Retired Officers Association and the First United Methodist Church.
Burial will be in the Stafford Cemetery west of Clinton under the direction of the Kern-Schneider-Kiesau Funeral Home of Clinton.
Survivors include his wife, Oleta, of the home; a son, Michael Ray LaRue and his wife Lindsay, of Grapevine, Texas; two sisters, Fern LaRue of Mesa, Ariz. and Faye LaRue of El Paso, Texas.
He was preceded in death by his parents and by a brother, Sammy LaRue.
The family has suggested that those who desire may make memorial contributions to the Southwest Community Playhouse in Clinton.


THE STORY OF THE LARUE FAMILY ... as seen through the eyes of a "Hoosier" type kitchen cabinet. This story written by Bill LaRue. He shared this story at the Gamble Family Reunion in 1992.

A SOUL DISCOVERED
(As told to Bill LaRue)
My origins are rather hazy and as far as I know, there is
not a living soul who can tell when I became a part of the LaRue family. A great deal of the following is conjecture and I'm sure a little bit of downright falsehood, but it will help to tell my story anyway.
I am a "Hoosier" type kitchen cabinet with a flour bin, sifter, a roll top door, a sliding porcelain counter top, three drawers and a big storage area behind a large door.
I was manufactured sometime around 1916. Some of my original hardware bears the date, 3-14-16.
Oh! I'was a proud looking specimen, oak construction
with a gleaming coat of white paint. The craftsme who made me were very good.
I have "Cope and Stick" constructed panel doors and sides, mortised joints and a disappearing tambour roll top door.
I was so proud when I was put out for sale at Medberry's
Furniture Store or Smith's Hardware. I really don't know the •name of the store where I was displayed. Many people looked at me, opened and closed my doors and especially worked my roll top door.
My price tag was a little steep for those days. $15.00 is a lot of money to be paid at one time so some customers asked about a payment now and a couple of payments later.
Things are a little unclear for me now about who first bought me. I can't remember if it was Sam LaRue or if his Father, Charles, took me home for the first time. I do know that I spent the pre-ponderance of my life with Sam and his beautiful wife, Jewell. In any case, I was loaded in a wagon and hauled about 8 to 10 miles out in the country to the LaRue farm near a small town named Stafford, Oklahoma. My first resting place was a big two story frame house on a hill overlooking the Washita River. The farm had been in the LaRue family since a few days after the Oklahoma Land Run in 1892 when Sam's father bought it from a speculator who claimed it in the Run. My recollections become a little clearer after Sam and Jewell moved into the big house after the death of Sam's mother in 1933.
Sam and Jewell had four children, Faye, born in 1924, Fern in 1925, Sammy in 1929 and Bill in 1933.•1 was able to watch all of these children grow up. I can remember some very hard times in that old house. Drought, floods, bugs and debts. Sometimes it seemed that every-thing conspired to test the very soul of mankind.
However, the deep and boundless love in that house managed to overcome all the obstacles.
One very frightful day, Jewell was in the kitchen canning
somethilflg in a big pressure cooker. Glass jars were stacked all over my, still beautiful porcelain top when all of a sudden, one of troaehot jars in the cooker exploded and cut Jewell severely on the wrist! An artery had been severed and blood was spurting everywhere.
She ran outside and a man up on top of the hill al-most 1/4 mile away could see the blood spurting in the sunlight. He ran down the hill and staunched the flow of blood. Sam took her to the doctor almost ten miles distant and she survived. She was a very lucky woman!
On another occasion in 1934, there was a very bad flood. The Washita River flowed over its banks and came all the way up the hill into the house. Everything in the house got wet, including me. The water even caused my beautiful oak veneer to wrinkle and crack. When the flood waters receded and the house was finally cleaned up, I was almost as good as new.
The kitchen where I stayed was really the hub of the house. When it was time for taking baths, water was heated on the stove and everyone took a bath in a washtub in the middle of the kitchen floor. In the winter time, the tub was moved to the dining room by the big stove. I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to how many meals were prepared on my porcelain top but there were hundreds and hundreds of pans of biscuits, cornbread and pancakes mixed on me. Threshing crews in the summer gave way to combining crews as time passed and each crew was fed two meals a day from that kitchen .. Invaribly, the preacher was there for Sunday dinner.
Details are kinda sketchy now but I was a part of the happiness, sadness, hope, despair and the unquenchable faith that lived in that house.
During the war years of the Second World War, I can remember all the family huddling around a wet 'cell battery radio to listen to the news. There was, however, time for listening to "Amos and Andy", "Inner~sanctum" and "Your Hit Parade". There was also time for Jewell to read to the kids from her "Bible Story Book" and for Sam to fall asleep in his chair while studying his Sunday School lessons. Both girls moved away during the war,
Faye getting a job in the telephone office and Fern going to work in a war factory. Time passed and the oldest son, Sammy, went to college and in 1949 was killed in a dormitory fire at the University of Oklahoma. Finally, in 1951, the youngest son, Bill, left home, took a bride and made a home for himself.
Once again, Sam and Jewell were left alone in the big two story house. I thought things would just go on forever.
I was still setting in the same place in the kitchen for over thirty years now, but suddenly, in 1954 or 1955, a terrible thing happened to me! Sam had a new well dug at the farm and everything changed. For the first time, there was running water in the kitchen, a new bathroom and worst of all, New Kitchen Cabinets!
I was afraid I would be dumped in the old hole down by the river but Sam saved me from that only to put me in almost as much despair. I was put into an old chicken house that Sam used for a workshop. On one end of the building was a wheat bin. My beautiful porcelain top became a storage place for oil cans, screws, nails and just about everything else. Mice from the wheat bin invaded me and made huge nests in me. They chewed through my drawers and actually chewed holes through my oak compartments. I became more ragged every day. My doors be-
came saggy and hinges broke from the rough usage of being a work bench. Mud dobbers made big mud nests inside me and mice and spiders were constant tenants. I was destined to stay in that dark little chicken house among the vernim and insects for over twenty years, becoming more delapidated all the time. My stay in the chicken house turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however, as the house with the new kitchen cabinets where I had lived so long, burned down in 1964. I got burned a little bit in the chicken house but I survived. The new kitchen cabinets did not.
Sam and Jewell then moved to Clinton but Sam continued to farm and came out to the farm nearly every day. Many times I could hear his pickup drive up and the tractor start.
I would anxiously await the door to open so I could see him and the sunlight but many times he never came in at all.
In 1973, Bill, the youngest son, and his wife, Leta, came
back to live in Clinton and Bill helped Sam farm. I got to see the sunshine a little more often as Bill and Leta spent a great deal of time cleaning up around the place. However, they paid scant attention to me. I was just a beat up delapidated old cabinet only good for a work bench.
In 1974, a very sad event occurred. Sam's lovely wife, Jewell, passed away. Sam was very saddened and came less and less to the farm. I suddenly realized that he was getting old and showing the effects of time the same as me.
In 1979, Sam LaRue passed away, being 85 years old. His
children, Faye, Fern and Bill and Leta, were charged with the responsibility of settling Sam's affairs. Bill continued to farm the place for a couple of more years and when it became obvious that the farm had to be sold, Bill rescued me from the chicken house. He sent me to a place to have my now dirty, dingy, chipped paint removed from me. I had no idea what was happening. When he brought me back, stripped to my bare wood, I was again placed in a tiny little room where Bill lived and remained there for another six long years. Then, one day out of the blue, Bill and Leta took me out of the little room and put me in their shop. I thought I had finally reached the end of my time. Bill disassembled me! He took me completely apart. No two pieces of wood were left together. Then came a time of great confusion for me. all my parts were systematically laid out on the floor. All my joints were scraped and cleaned, new pieces were substituted for old broken ones, new drawers were made, a new breadboard and a new roll top door which I could hardly ever remember having were constructed.
Wonder of all wonders, Bill then very carefully, with time and patience that exceeded even my initial makers, started putting me together again. For the first time in over forty years, my joints were all tight and I stood straight and square on the floor. My natural oak grain was sanded and smoothed and holes and blemishes filled. I was stained a beautiful golden brown and layers of lacquer sprayed on me. New porcelain knobs and hardware were installed. My beautiful porcelain top was cleaned and finally emerged with only one chip in the porcelain. Finally, on 31 July 1985, I was carried into bill and Leta's house and placed in their dining room in a place of honor.
I'm ready now for another 69 years!