Dad’s Page

That feature photo above is of me, Dad & Jerry sometime in 1958-59 when I was home for a visit from my Freshman Year at the University of Oklahoma and I think they had already moved back to Arkansas, maybe in Camden here, not sure.

I wish now that I had written down more about Dad in my early adult years as I felt then that I was the only one in the family that understood or loved Dad during my teen years and later as an adult all the way to his death.

Dad’s life was being one of the best clothing salesman in the business, managing many clothing stores across Arkansas and Asst. Mgr. of a big shopping center department store in Tulsa during my high school years. He was always friendly and positive which was necessary in his business and maybe the rest of the family felt he did not bring that attitude home, I don’t know. He was a believer and active in church before moving to Tulsa. He sang in the choir and did solos and for awhile in Arkansas led the music in revival meetings and had his own radio program in El Dorado called “Hymn Time with Lloyd Doggett” that was sponsored by the Department Store there that he managed, Duggar Department Store.

From his teen years, if not before, Jerry never liked Dad and later seemed to hate him, even in his death when the small amount of inheritance we got from the sale of Dad’s house in Crystal Springs was not what Jerry expected, though he certainly never offered to help me in getting it sold. And he did not come to the funeral. Jerry blamed all of his own problems on Dad and believed Mom was mistreated by Dad, which I never saw, but maybe so. Though the grown-up Bonnie was always kind and never criticized Dad around me, she certainly was the most familiar with the later years of Dad and his relationship with Mom and I suspect has some negative feelings even if not expressed. I don’t know.

Mom’s relationship with Dad was always a little bit of a mystery to me, but sometime after I was married and having my own marriage problems, I was visiting her in Crystal Springs and took her out for lunch one day and she confided in me that she was thinking about a divorce. I told her that I would be very supportive if she did, but I may not be able to help financially because of Ginger whom I expected to be divorced from sometime in the future and was. And we were already overextended with a house we couldn’t afford and other expenses like two children, one of which was a “special needs” child. The times were difficult for all of the family! She never filed for divorce then, like I remember her doing in Tulsa when I was in high school, though she never went through it then either.

After Mom’s death, Dad lived alone in Crystal Springs for several years, from 1988 to 1995 when I moved him to Nashville in May and he died in November. I had earlier worked with his mechanic to get rid of his car so he would not drive anymore because of several accidents. Then he had falls walking up and down that steep hill he lived on and hurt himself. So I had to move him to Nashville where I could help him and supervise more, which of course was against his will, though he insisted that I get him a cheap apartment so he could be on his own.

I put him in an independent living senior adult home which was in a tower building. One day when he was cooking his bacon & eggs breakfast he caught the grease on fire and set off the smoke alarm with Fire Department ladder trucks coming out. I had to move him out and found an assisted living home that would accept him for his SS check and he lived several months there until one morning he would not wake up the home told me when they called. I went to the hospital where they said he died peacefully in his sleep.

He had a burial lot next to Mom in a Hot Springs with a VA-provided tombstone. I arranged for his transportation from a funeral home in Nashville to a funeral home in Hot Springs and arranged a funeral graveside service with the pastor of Second Baptist Hot Springs where he and Mom were inactive members. See more on the page:

Death of Dad 1995

Links to Photos of Dad