Virgil Price Akers

May 31, 1958

Maxey Manton Harrell

Maxey Manton Harrell was born July 6, 1888 in Waelder, Texas, to Martha Ann [Hopkins] and Milvern Harrell, Jr. He died May 31, 1958 in a Norman, Oklahoma hospital after a long illness. Funeral was held Tuesday, June 3, 1958, at the Conner-Dobbins Funeral Chapel in Purcell, with the Rev. John Smith officiating. Interment was in the Greenhill Cemetery in Lindsay, Oklahoma.

At the age of six, Maxey moved with his family to Ravia, Indian Territory. In 1908, when Maxey was 20, the family moved to the Dibble area. On November 2, 1913, he and Grace Ann Bond were united in marriage at the home of her parents, Bart Nolan and Sarah Ann Bond, in the old Curty community. He and Grace bought a farm, two miles west and two miles south of Dibble. It was on this farm that their six children were born: William Manton, Christine Frances, Maxine Delma, Dick Merrill, Wanda Lee, and James Kenneth. In 1937, the family moved to Purcell, Oklahoma, where he worked for two years as foreman of the Civilian Conservation Corps. He then began work in the real estate and oil leasing business. For almost twenty years he had an office one block south of the McClain County Courthouse on the second floor of the old First State Bank. He was a member of the Christian Church in Purcell.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Grace Ann, who died in 1938. Two sons, William Manton and Dick Merrill, died in infancy, and his son James Kenneth died in World War II. Survivors include three daughters and their husbands, Christine and Roy Peters of Alex, Oklahoma, Maxine and Lloyd Alford of Fullerton, California, and Wanda and James Copenhaver of Riverside, California. Eight grandchildren, Marilyn Peters, Carolyn (Jeanie) Peters, Roy Peters, Jr., Nelda Jean (Jeannie) Alford, Nancy Alford, Lloyd Kenneth (Ken) Alford, Carla Copenhaver, and Charee Copenhaver also survive him, as well as one brother, Clifton Harrell of Orange Cove, California, and two sisters, Delma M. Hopkins of Blanchard, Oklahoma, and Mattie H. Towry of Norman, Oklahoma.