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Submitted: 9/30/09 • Approved: 9/11/23 • Last Updated: 11/3/23 • R242041-G242040-S3
Tom 27 Dec 1924 - 27 Aug 2023
Maggie 07 Jan 1925 - 15 Jun 1988
Marriage:
Maggie
1) George Edgar Henry, Jr. 13 Jan 1945
2) Thomas Steadman Waldron ca 1973
Thomas Steadman Waldron son of R.C. Waldron and Lucille Waldron. Maggie DeArman (Spikes) Henry Waldron daughter of William Ervin Spikes and Gladys "Tynse" Emma (DeArman) Spikes.
**obituary
Thomas Steadman Waldron U.S. Veteran
December 27, 1924 - August 27, 2023
Thomas Steadman Waldron was born in December 1924 in Black Rock, Arkansas. He graduated from Walnut Ridge High School in 1943, having played center on the football team. He did basic training in Westfield, MA and served as an army engineer, working as a clerk in World War II in 1943-45 as part of the Fifth Army attached to the Air Force Service Command. He worked one mile behind the front lines during the grueling Rome-Arno Campaign, starting in Naples, Italy and ending in Linz, Austria at the end of the war and was awarded three bronze stars. He graduated on the GI bill as a business major from the University of Arkansas in 1950. During college, he served as the house manager of Sigma Chi fraternity for three years. He was a loyal Sigma Chi alumnus for many years.
After college he spent a year in Memphis working for B.F. Goodrich, enjoying visits to the Peabody Hotel to hear the big bands play. He also worked for three months for PBK in Pine Bluff AR, before his love of Northeast AR pulled him back to Walnut Ridge. He bought the old Foster’s Grocery, and he and his mother worked side by side there in the 1950s. Missing the outdoors, he decided to focus solely on farming. He loved driving the highways to see how the crops were looking and who might have planted too late or too early. For many years he had up to 75 cattle, visiting them every day, rain or shine, driving them away from the Black River when it flooded, treating them like favorite pets.
He married Maggie Spikes Henry in 1973, and they had many happy times with friends and family until her death in 1988. He took wonderful care of his elderly mother in the years after his father’s death. He was kind and generous to his two older sisters, Camille Fitzhugh Ellis and Inez Riggs, and visited them and their families often, as well as those of Maggie’s children Ben Henry, Clem Henry, and Cassie Henry Jean.
Tom was a lifelong Methodist and an active and faithful member of First United Methodist Church of Walnut Ridge. He was an avid bowler for many years and later became a tennis enthusiast, playing often with friends into his 80’s. He loved a good joke and U.S. history, in particular trivia about the United States Presidents.
Tom was predeceased by his parents, Lucile and R.C. Waldron, his wife Maggie, his sisters Camille and Inez, his nephews Thomas Richard “Tommy” Riggs MD and Jim Fitzhugh, and Maggie’s son Clem and grandson William Jean. He is survived by his nieces Dianne Espinoza and Susan Riggs Runge, MD and their families and Tommy’s family, his nephew Davis Fitzhugh and his family, and Ben, Clem and Cassie and their families.
The family would like to thank the many polite and helpful employees of St. Bernard’s Village, St. Bernard’s Rainwater Memory Center at the Villa and The Flo and Phil Jones Hospice House in Jonesboro for the excellent care that Tom received the last two years.
Visitation will be Saturday, September 9th from 10:30 am till 11 am in the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church of Walnut Ridge followed by a funeral service there and then burial with military honors at Lawrence Memorial Park under the direction of House-Gregg Funeral Home.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the First United Methodist Church of Walnut Ridge, the Arkansas Children’s Hospital or the charity of your choice.
Obituary provided courtesy of House-Gregg Funeral Home Walnut Ridge and Lynn, Lawrence County, Arkansas. Published Sept 2023 © Copyright 2010 - 23 House-Gregg Funeral Home. All Rights Reserved.
Section 16 Row 39
Contributed on 9/30/09 by tootied
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Record #: 242041