Obituary of Oscar F. Sherrod
Services for Oscar F. Sherrod, 94, were held at 2:30 p.m.,
Thursday, Jan. 16, at Wellman Funeral Home Chapel in Shreveport.
Officiating were Rev. Bill McDonald, pastor of Kings Highway
Christian Church, assisted by Mr. Charles Ravenna. Interment was
in Forest Park Cemetery.
Mr. Sherrod died Tuesday, Jan. 14, at Schumpert Medical Center.
He was born Jan. 16, 1897, in Tuscumbia, Ala., and moved to
Shreveport, after serving in the U. S. Army in World War I. He
was a retired tie and timber agent for Kansas City Railway for 46
years. Mr. Sherrod was a member and deacon of the Kings Highway
Christian Church, a 32nd degree Mason, and the founder of the
Central Civic Club.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Flora Belle Sherrod.
Survivors include two daughters, Joanne and husband Orvis Sigler
of Shreveport, B. J. and husband John Robertson Jr. of Houston,
Texas; two sisters, Mrs. Irene Whitlock of Tuscumbia, Ala., and
Mrs. Martha Crawford of Roanoke, Va.; one brother, Herbert
Sherrod of Tuscumbia, Ala.; five grandchildren, John Sherrod
Robertson Layssard of Converse, Julie Robertson of Lufkin, Texas,
Anne Whittington Lasseigne of Shreveport, Liz Whittington Shaw of
Tyler, Texas; three step grandchildren, Steve Sigler, Sally
Bruer, Susan Templeton; and six great grandchildren.
Pallbearers were Bill Robertson, Kenneth Miller, Jimmy Monk,
Harold Ross, H. T. Traylor, and Hill Harris.
Ethel Sherod Whitlock remembers the cold and privation of the WWI years, the shortages of sugar and namufactured goods, the making of soap and hog meat to subsist, the loneliness as her brothers and husband to be John Whitlock went to France in 1917-18, leaving hardly anyone able to work the large farm.
She remembers that Little Bear Creek Froze solid (this was before Wilson and Pickwick Dams were built) as this stream flowed through the old sherrod and McWilliams land where the dug out trenches and gun emplacements of the Confederate Army still stand as silent reminders of that valiant struggle during the Civil War years.
She recalls the bitter wind sweeping in from the Tennessee River with such force that snow was driven through the outer planks of the house and rested on the quilts of the bed where Rosie Lee was giving birth to her youngest child. She remembers her mother too soon, getting up to take care of her eight other children and still too weak losing the baby and her own life at the age of 36.
