UPDATED: 12/14/2023
Please refer to the “Eastham Genealogy Information Project” link above.
Samuel Arthur Eastham12 (4/_/1900, Arkansas – 9/29/1932, Roswell, New Mexico) Buried in South Park Cemetery, Roswell, New Mexico. Arthur was the son of Milliner Charles and Annie Eastham. With his father Charlie’s financial assistance, he built a log home on Caney Creek just next to the Caney Creek Saw Mill on one corner of Charlie’s farm. He married Mabel Naoma Conaway. Arthur died of tuberculosis when he was only 32 years old.
Together they bore four children:
i Calvin Leo Eastham, Sr.13
ii Beulah Coweta Eastham Bishop13
iii Arnold Eastham13
iv Arthur Ray Eastham13
Arthur served in the Navy. Mary Lou (Eastham) Graham remembers, “he used to bring candy bars home for us kids.” After the war, he and Mabel moved back to Big Creek near Nowata. Arthur died of cancer of the stomach when he was only 32 years old. He and Mabel had moved to New Mexico because the doctors thought he had tuberculosis and the climate and clean air there were conducive to proper healing of the disease.
Tuberculosis was the second biggest killer of Americans at the time, following pneumonia and influenza, but because of the lack of knowledge and training among doctors at the time, misdiagnosis was extremely common. When Arthur died, nearly all the Easthams gave up smoking, refusing to let any more of their numbers die so needlessly.
After Arthur’s death, Mabel and the children moved in with Marvin Eastham and his family for a few years before Mabel met and married Robert Dearman in 1942.
Arthur’s two surviving children attended school at Union Grove over by Bunch, OK, and went to high school at Bagley High in Tahlequah, OK.
Calvin Leo Eastham, Sr.
Calvin Leo Eastham, Jr.14
Deborah (Debby) René Eastham14
Kathe Regina Eastham14
Arnold Ray Eastham14
Paula Gay (Eastham) Perry14
Calvin L. Eastham, Jr.
Calvin served as a US Army chaplain from 1985-2010, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He then was selected to be the religious education director for Fort Sill as a Department of Defense GS civilian. His last active duty assignment was as deputy installation chaplain, Fort Sill.
Prior assignments included director of pastoral care, United States Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; garrison chaplain for he Kaiserslautern Military Community, Germany; and deputy installation chaplain and resources manager at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where he was also the chaplain for the engineer training brigade.
He completed a year of advanced training in clinical pastoral care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC, and was assigned as chaplain for the hospital at Fort Sill. He deployed to Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and had troop assignments at Kaiserslautern, Germany, and Fort Hood, Texas. He was endorsed by the Chruch of God, Cleveland, Tennessee.
Before entering the Army, he served as director of admissions and records after receiving his master of divinity degree at the Church of God School of Theology. He obtained his bachelor of science in education from the University of Oklahoma and taught high school English and journalism at Blackwell and Del City. He also started a church in Blackwell. He is an avid photographer and enjoys hiking in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton.
Figure 32: Calvin Jr. and family
Calvin and Barbara have two children:
Robert Thomas Eastham15
Kristen Noel Eastham15
Deborah “Debby” René Eastham
Deborah (Debby) René was child number two, born August 4, 1949, a year and a day later than Calvin, Jr. Debby and Calvin both started school in Tennessee. Debby married shortly after graduating from high school and has two children:
Darin Dewaine Redus,
Amy René Redus
Debby, formerly a pharmacy assistant, is enjoying life as a housewife with her husband Dennis Davis. Dennis is a sergeant on the Del City police force.
Kathe Regina Eastham
Kathe was born at the beginning of the Korean conflict. Calvin and Tiny were shaken when Calvin received a summons to be ready to report. He was still on a reserve list for the Army. Luckily, he never had to report, but did have to leave for Paducah, Kentucky, the day after she was born, and didn’t see his newest child for several weeks.
Kathe knew she was going to be a nurse from the time she was a child. She was helping her “Popaw” Rob apply a bandage when he asked her if she were going to be his nurse when she grew up. From that time she knew this was her calling. She says she has been a nurse almost thirty-five years, and has never regretted it. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Oklahoma.
When she is not at her post as Disease Management Coordinator for the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, she sews, makes beaded necklaces, sings, and works with children at a mental health facility.
She has three children.
Nathan Allen Moore
Emily Victoria Moore
????????
Arnold Ray Eastham
Arnold Ray lives in Harrah, OK, where he raises cow-bred quarter horses. His favorite is a “beautiful buckskin stud” that produces wonderful colts. His favorite activities are hunting, fishing, and playing ball. He is a former civilian employee in the maintenance department at Tinker A.F.B. in Midwest City. He has two children:
Sarah Michelle Eastham Wilson
Evan Ray Eastham
Paula Gay (Eastham) Perry
Paula Gay was child number five, coming along almost seven years after Arnold was born. A little red-haired pixie, she was the delight of the family, and is the family comedian. She attended the University of Central Oklahoma, where she got a degree in Communications. However, she realized she had missed her calling and went on to get a degree in Elementary Education. She now has a Master’s Degree in Education, and has been teaching at the same elementary school in the Mid-Del school system for all of her career. Her husband, Brian ‘Scott’ Perry is an educator in Administration. They have no children, but Paula (or Aunt Poppi as she is affectionately called) mothers all her nieces and nephews and their children.
Beulah Coweta Eastham Bishop
Coweta and her husband Charlus Truman Bishop had been married sixty years when he passed away May 22, 2003. Coweta died in ????? Together they had three children:
Glenda Joyce Bishop
Allen, Gary Don Bishop
Charlees Terry Bishop
Besides being a wife, homemaker and farmer, Coweta has worked as a nursing home owner and Administrator since 1964.
Coweta reported the following information about her childhood after her father’s death:
“Too much interesting stuff went on to write about. It would take months and maybe a book in the making. I remember once Marie and I were hunting my pig when we walked up on a snake and the snake just opened its mouth and swallowed all the baby snakes. My great grandchildren like to hear that story.”
Arnold Eastham
Arnold died of an ear infection when he was seven years old.
Arthur Ray Eastham
Arthur Ray died when he was eighteen months old. He is buried in Alpena, AR.
The tombstone below is located in “Caney Cemetery” and may be the burial spot of Arthur Ray Eastham, instead of Alpena, AR. (Found online – 8/30/22)
