Oklahoma Family Tree Stories
This beautiful sculpture of three redbud trees is located just outside the Eleanor and John Kirkpatrick Research Center in the Oklahoma History Center. Each leaf of the Oklahoma Family Tree memorializes an Oklahoma family with the family surname, first name(s), and the town or county where they lived. In addition, a short family history is preserved in the digital family history book at the base of the tree. Sponsoring a leaf is a special way to recognize your family history and benefit future generations at the same time. To find out how to honor your own family with a leaf visit the Oklahoma Family Tree Project page.
Bond, Reford Jr. Family
Family Tree Leaf
Bond, Son - Reford Bond III
Grady County
(Family information provided by donor)
Reford Bond Jr., was born on August 10, 1903, in Chickasha, Oklahoma. As his father represented the Chickasaw Nation in Washington, he attended and graduated from Woodberry Forest, a college preparatory school in Virginia. He graduated from the University of Virginia and spent a brief time with the banking industry in New York City, where he roomed with his college roommate and lifelong friend, actor Joseph Cotton. He returned to Oklahoma to attend the University of Oklahoma Law School and to Chickasha to launch his career as an attorney. He was admitted to the practice of law before the US Supreme Court and belonged to the Grady County Bar Association, the Oklahoma Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. Bond was listed in Who’s Who in the South and Southwest.
Bond practiced law for thirty-seven years and was known for his civic contributions. He was a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and served on the Chickasha Board of Education from 1940 to 1953, where he was elected several times as chairman.
Bond died in Oklahoma City in 1962 at the age of fifty-nine. Survivors included his wife, Mrs. Jane Bond; three sons, Reford Bond III and Jay Rosser Bond, both of Oklahoma City, and Myron Humphrey Bond, then in the Navy in Bakersfield, California; two daughters, Mrs. Gene T. Bonner of Oklahoma City and Mrs. John B. Wootten Jr., of Chickasha; five grandchildren; and his mother, Mrs. Jeanette Ware Bond, of Chickasha.
