Hubert O'Rear

Hubert Russell O'Rear

April 28, 1927 - August 10, 2019

After a long life well-lived, Hubert Russell O’Rear of Friendswood, Texas passed away August 10 in his home following a fifteen-year battle with Parkinson’s Disease. He was 92 years old.

He will be buried at Old Friendship cemetery in Chester County, Tennessee. Doug Burleson will officiate funeral services on Saturday, August 17 at 2 p.m. at Shackelford Funeral Directors, 619 East Main Street, Henderson, Tennessee, 38340.

Mr. O’Rear was born on April 28, 1927, the second child to Earl and Bernice O’Rear, in a little farm house on the bank of the Red River seven miles from Idabel, Oklahoma. The delivering doctor had to get to the house over a dirt road from old highway 21, on a horse or mule. Having no running water, the O’Rears drew their water from a well and used an outhouse. His early education was in a two-room school house.

In the final year of World War II, Mr. O’Rear was drafted into the Army Air Force and trained as an aircraft mechanic. Following the war, he worked for three years at the Red River Arsenal, and for three years for Chance-Vought Aircraft in Grand Prairie, Texas, helping build F7U Navy fighter planes. He then joined Braniff Airlines in Dallas, where he worked for 26 years in engine overhaul until 1982, when Braniff went into bankruptcy and out of business. He afterwards worked for 10 years for the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department before retiring in 1993.

On April 21, 1957, a week before his 30th birthday he married Mattie Florene Naylor. He had seen her during a family vacation visit to the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis in 1955, where he snitched her address from the museum guest book, and began a letter writing courtship. After they were married, the couple lived for 58 years in Farmers Branch, in Dallas, where he was a deacon in the Webb Chapel Church of Christ for 44 years. He fathered two children, Rachel, now deceased, who for quite a time was a missionary with her husband Barry in West Africa; and Patrick, who is an engineer in the NASA space program.

Gifted with a melodious voice, Mr. O’Rear sang in his church, in the Dallas Town North Barbershop Chorus, and in the Farmers Branch Senior Center Ukelele Band. In January 2017, he and Florene moved to Village on the Park in Friendswood to be near their son Patrick and his wife Laura.

He is survived by his wife Florene, his son Patrick, Patrick’s wife Laura,
grandchildren Connor O’Rear, Mackenzie O’Rear,and Andrew Baggott, son in law Barry Baggott, step-grandson Ashton Krawietz, and many nieces and nephews. He is preceded in death by his daughter Rachel Irene O’Rear Baggott, sisters Ada Elizabeth O’Rear Hurley and Marjorie Ruth O’Rear Farren, and step-grandson Dylan Krawietz.

Shackelford Funeral Directors of Henderson
731-989-2624