J.H. Parks

Funeral Services will be held on March 20th at Schaudt's Funeral Services located at 5757 S. Memorial, Tulsa. The family asks that everyone who knew Jay to please come and celebrate his life. There will be a visitation at 12:00 followed by a service at 2:00pm. A private interment will be held at a later date.

He was survived by his children, Clifton Parks of Ft. Smith, Arkansas; Preston (Charmin) Parks of Waldorf, Maryland; Darrell (Lyn) James of Edmond, OK; J. Derrick Ward of Edmond, OK; Steve (Angie) James of OKC, OK; his sister, Luseal (Leo) Rard of Antlers, OK; 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his devoted wife of 43 years, Carolyn Frazier Parks; his daughter, Lavonda James; his father, Joseph T. Parks; his mother, Amie Brown; his stepfather, Bill Brown; and his siblings, A.L. Parks; L.V. Brown; Rosie Ramsey; and Everett Brown.

Jay was born in Clayton, Oklahoma on September 22, 1943. He grew up in Antlers, OK. Jay's love of games started in his early childhood. The family lived in the country and didn't have much money, so he and his brother (A.L.) had to get creative. They made cars out of cardboard and string and raced them in circles in the dirt. Instead of using a ball to knock down a pile of soda cans, they would sling each other by the collar and pants. His father (Joseph) passed when the boys were young, and his mother married Bill Brown. Jay and his brother then had four new playmates, Bill's two sons (L.V. and Everett) and two daughters (Luseal and Rosie).

He graduated high school in Antlers, OK in 1963 and enlisted in the U.S. Army shortly thereafter. He attended bootcamp at Fort Chaffee then went to a base in Washington state, then California before going to Germany during the Vietnam War. He served for five years.

During his time in the service, he married Evelyn Walkup and they had two sons, Preston and Clifton. After the military, his family resided in Midwest City for two years when he worked at Tinker Air Force Base. They moved to OKC when Jay joined the United States Postal Service as a mail carrier. He served for 29 years. He used to say that he didn't get wet on rainy days delivering the mail, he just learned how to walk between the rain drops.

In 1973, he married Carolyn. Jay raised Carolyn's sons (Darrell, Derrick and Steve) and daughter (Lavonda) as his own. Jay carried this belief that family is more than blood throughout his life. He welcomed everyone into his home and treated them like family.
Jay loved his children dearly, but he loved his grandchildren more. When his grandkids came to visit, he would greet them at the door and give them each a family size bag of candy, so they didn't have to share. He remembered their birthdays every year with a gift or card or phone call. He traveled across country to attend every graduation.
During family visits, Jay loved to play games, especially card games, with his family late into the night. He also loved pie. If somebody had made a pie, that was the trifecta for Jay - family, games and pie.

Jay never met a stranger and he loved to visit with everyone. He would take a few minutes to find out something about the person and then share with them some interesting fact, usually historical, that related to their life. He knew something about everything, and his memory was amazing. He knew all the words to old songs from the 40's and 50's and even though he couldn't carry a tune, that didn't stop him from singing along.

After his retirement from the Postal Service, Jay worked as a greeter at Wal-Mart for 13 years. Jay could talk to anybody, so being a greeter was the perfect job for him. He also used his people skills at the baseball concession stand and was locally known as the Mayor of Oakbrook, the neighborhood he lived in for 40 years. He knew everybody and if he'd only just met you, it only took a few minutes before you'd realized you'd just made a friend.