Jerry Wayne Tucker

Jerry Wayne Tucker was born at home on a very hot August 5th in 1935 to Pearl and RC Tucker in Portageville, MO, a tiny town in the boot heel of the state. Jerry was the youngest boy in a brood of thirteen. He had five brothers and seven sisters (three of which did not survive infancy/childhood). It was a tough time, the Depression, and Jerry’s family made a living by picking cotton or other crops for landowners in the area. When Jerry was five, his father died, leaving the family without a patriarch.
Around the age of six, Jerry and his younger sister, Faye, were often left at home to cook the beans for dinner while the rest of the family went off to work in the fields. Jerry remembered that he and his sister were afraid that the house was haunted and would only run inside long enough to make sure the beans were not burning.
After Jerry graduated from high school in 1953, he worked in a department store in Hayti, Missouri selling shoes. He was a natural salesman but after a couple of years he decided to leave his job at the department store and strike out for Tulsa, Oklahoma, where his older sister Mildred was living with her family. In due time, he got a job as a salesman with United Insurance and started his career.
Around 1962, Jerry was urged by a friend to accompany him to Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa to meet Ann Kiser, a lovely girl who worked as a secretary for an oil company. Jerry and Ann met and went out that very afternoon after church to drive around and look at houses, which became a lifelong habit. Jerry and Ann were married in 1964 and had their first child, Pamela, in 1966. Other children followed. A son, Larry, in 1972 and a daughter, Julie, in 1980.
Jerry and Ann moved to Okmulgee, Ok in 1970. Jerry continued to grow his insurance business in that town and the surrounding areas. Jerry treated his customers like friends and they loved to see him coming to the door. In those days, United insurance premiums were collected weekly or monthly in very small amounts, so Jerry spent his days going door to door in his sharp suits and shined shoes, collecting premiums, visiting, and making new sales.
A new chapter in Jerry’s life began in the late 1980’s when he bought the inventory of a junk shop and turned that business into two furniture stores in downtown Okmulgee, Tucker Furniture. He and Ann ran the stores with a few employees. He also began to buy rental properties in Okmulgee as an investment and owned/operated over 40 homes for many years.
Jerry spent his years after retirement enjoying his children, grandchildren and relaxing on the back porch at his country home.


Visitation will be from 9-10:30AM on Monday, November 21, 2022 at Integrity Chapel.

Funeral Services are scheduled for 11:00 AM, Monday, November 21, 2022 at Integrity Chapel. Interment will follow at Hickory Grove Cemetery in Haywood, Oklahoma. Services are under the care and direction of Integrity Funeral Service.

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