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The Family of Oscar A. Mitscher and Myrta Shear
Mitscher of Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma
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Oscar A. Mitscher was born June
7,
1861, in
Hillsboro, Wisconsin.
He came to Oklahoma
City in 1889
and
was a senior partner in
the
Mitscher Bros.
mercantile
business.
He and his
wife, Myrta Viola
Shear, had three
children: Zoe Amelia,
Marc Andrew and Thomas
Andrew. Mitscher
was elected
Mayor
in
1892 on the Republican
ticket. During
his term, city
streets were improved,
power plants were
built, and
sanitary
sewers
were
constructed. The
City’s primary
revenue source at
this
time was the
annual license fee of
$250
collected from
city liquor dealers. In
1900 Pres.
William
McKinley appointed
the elder Mitscher as Osage Indian agent
at
Pawhuska.
Oscar died in 1926 in
Oklahoma
City. |
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Mrs. Mitcher, Mother of Noted Admiral,
Dies
Mrs. Myrta
Shear
Mitscher, mother of the
late Admiral
Marc
A. Mitscher, famed World war II leader
of
task force 58,
died Sunday afternoon
in
her home, 229
NE
Park.
She
was 83
years
old. She had been in
ill
health
since she
broke
her hip March
27. Death was
attributed to a
heart
ailment.
Mrs. Mitscher last
visited
with
Admiral
Mitscher in
November, 1946, when
he came
here for a
family gathering
on
Thanksgiving
day. He died
in February,
1947. She
was born
and
reared in
Hillsboro,
Wis.
There
she
married
O. A.
Mitscher, then a
clerk
in a
general
merchandise
store. Their
son, who was later to
enter Annapolis
and become
Oklahoma's top
military
leader in
the last
war, was
born in
Hillsboro.
The
family came to
Oklahoma City in
the land run of
1889. Her
husband,
who
died
in
1926,
was an
early-day merchant here. He was
associated with
Mitchell-Mitscher
drygoods at the
present
location
of John
A. Brown & Co.
and the
Miller-Mitscher
Wholesale
Co. Both
firms have been
dissolved.
Mrs.
Mitscher was
a
member of
Episcopal Church
of the
Redeemer in
Okmulgee, where
she had
lived with
a
daughter
following
her
husband's
death. She
belonged to the Eastern
Star and
the Women
of '89. Sue is
survived
by a son,
Tom
Mitscher, 1139
N.
Central;
a daughter, Mrs. Zoe Hoenel,
home
address;
abrother
W. W. Shear, 909 NW 8,
six grandchildren
and
three
great
grand-children.
Services will be
announced
by
Smith
&
Kernke
funeral
home.
Source:
Daily
Oklahoman
Sep. 13,
1948 Page 3 |
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During World War II Marc Andrew Mitscher
Vice-Admiral of
the United States
Navy
and commander of the famed Task
Force
Fifty-Eight. Born
in Hillsboro,
Wisconsin, on January 26,
1887, Marc A.
"Pete" Mitscher
grew up an Oklahoman.
After
Oklahoma Territory opened for
settlement, Mitscher's father,
O. A.
Mitscher,
moved the family to Oklahoma City, where
he
was elected mayor in 1891. In 1900
Pres.
William McKinley
appointed the
elder
Mitscher as Osage Indian agent at
Pawhuska.
Unimpressed with the local
schools, his
father sent
young
Mitscher
to Washington, D.C., for his
education.
In 1904
U.S. Rep. Bird S. McGuire
appointed him
to
the United States
Naval Academy at
Annapolis,
Maryland. An indifferent
student,
Mitscher seemed to be in
continuous
trouble, earning 159
demerits in one
class year. In
1906 he resigned, but his
father
immediately coaxed McGuire to
reappoint
him. After six
years, in 1910
he
graduated 113th
out of 131 classmates. At
Annapolis he
developed a passion for
aviation. He
served in
the fleet until
1915 when he found
an opportunity for
aviation
training aboard the USS North
Carolina.
In 1919
he received
his first Navy Cross
for his participation in the first
trans-Atlantic
flight by Navy Curtiss
seaplanes. Three
of
Curtisses made
the
attempt, and only one landed safely;
unfortunately,
Mitscher had to be
rescued from the sea.
Mitscher's
investment in
aeronautics and the navy
carried him
through various assignments,
including
teaching
flyers in San
Diego, duties
with
the Bureau of
Aeronautics, and stints on
early
aircraft carriers. In 1938 the
navy
promoted him to
captain, and three
years later he assumed command of the
carrier USS
Hornet. After Japan attacked
Pearl
Harbor, his
carrier hosted Col.
Jimmy Doolittle's sixteen B-25 bombers
that raided Tokyo
and other Japanese
cities. On May 30,
1942,
Mitscher
achieved rear
admiral status and by June
was battle
tested at Midway. After
active
campaigning
in the Pacific
theater of
operations, he
took command of Task
Force Fifty,
renamed Task Force
Fifty-Eight in
January 1944. He was
involved in most
major battles in
the Pacific, including
the
Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf, the
Marianas
Islands
"Turkey
Shoot," and the assaults
on Iwo Jima, Okinawa (where his
forces
were in
action for a remarkable ninety-two
straight
days), and the Japanese home
islands. In
1945 Mitscher took
the office of deputy
chief of naval operations for air and in
1946 became commander of the
Eighth
Fleet. The navy then
assigned Admiral
Mitscher to be
commander in chief of the
U.S.
Atlantic Fleet. The navy had
awarded
Marc A.
Mitscher three
Navy Crosses by
the time he died
of a heart attack on
February
3, 1947. His wife, Frances,
survived
him. They
are both buried
at Airlington
National
Cemetery. |
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Admiral
Mitscher, Hero of
Victory Over Japs,
Dies
Norvolk,
Va., Feb.
3--Admiral
Marc A.
Mitscher,
who
scourged
the
Japanese with
spectacular
carrier-based air
blows,
died
quietly in
his sleep
Monday
at
the
Norfolk
naval
hospital,
eight
days after he was
stricken
with a
heart
attack on
his
sixtieth
birthday.
The death
of the
commander-in-chief
of the Atlantic fleet
was announced
by
the fifth naval
district shorly
after
3.
a.m. A
hospital bulletin
said
the special
nurse on duty reported
that
the
admiral had
been
sleeping quietly
but shortly after
1 a.m.
he
ceased
breathing.
The time was officially
reported as
1:20
a.m. and the cause of
death was
thrombosis,
coronary
artery.
Mitscher entered
the hospital January
26, his
birthday,
for what a first
spokesman
described as
a
"complete
and
thorough
checkup" for
gastronintestinal upset
coupled with
a
case of severe
bronchitis.
Subsequent
diagnosis
showed
the
upset
to
have been
a
heart attack, the
spokesman
reported.
In
Washington, the
navy
announced
Vice Adm.
W.
H. P.
Blardy,
ordnance expert
and director of the
atomic bomb
tests
in the Pacific last
summer, would
succeed Mitscher
in
command of the
Atlantic
fleet.
Promotion of
Blandy to
full
admiral is
expected to
follow
his
assignment as
fleet
commander.
Expressing regret
at the Pacific war
hero's
death,
Secretary of the Navy
Forrestal
said in
Washington
that
"the place he
occupies in the
hearts of those who
served under
him,
officers and men, is a
firmer basis
of
tribute than
any
that words cound
frame." He
added: "The
United
States
Navy, with
sorrow
and
pride,
sends its
deep
sympathy to
Mrs.
Marc A.
Mitscher."
Mrs. Mitscher was at
their home
when
the admiral died.
Fleet
Admiral
Chester W.
Nimitz,
chief of nal
operations, and at
Norfold that "The
nation has
lost a
great
leader. I
always had
a sense
of
security
and
comfort when
Admiral Mitscher
was the leader of task
force
58 against
the Japanese. I
knew
that what had
to
be
done
would be done
in
full
measure. He
needed no detailed
instructions.
All he needed was
opportunity and he
made
the
most of
ever
opportunity."
General
Carl A Spaatz chief of the army
air
forces, who came here with
Nimitz for
exercises opening the armed forces staff
college,
at which Mitscher also had been
scheduled to speak, sait
Mitscher's
death
was "a great loss to the army as well as to
the navy." As commander of famed
task force 58 Mitscher
hurled serial
smashes at Trukk and the Marianas in
February of
1944 and exploded the myth
of the
invincibility of those
strongholds in
the
U.S. Navy's first test of its newly built
carrier power. During these
strikes, Mitscher seemed
never to become
excited, fellow officers often related,
but
sat calmly in an easy chair on the
bridge of his flagship as
he received
dispatches and issued orders in a quiet
voice. One
of the navy's first
aviators, Mitscher
skippered the
aircraft carrier Hornet, the
"Shrangri-Law" from
which Lt. Gen (then
Lt. Col.) James
Doolittle launched his
raid on Tokyo and
other Japanese cities. Mitscher's
fast
task force, using the entire
Pacific
ocean as its stamping
ground, struck at
enemy aircraft plants and chased the
Japanese air force
to cover, while
pounding at Tokyo and
vicinity early in
1945. Earlier in the war, he was
commander of
aircraft in the Solomon
islands and for
this tour
of duty
received the Distinguished Service
Medal. He
held many other
decorations.
Mitscher was born in
Hillsboro, Wis.,
Jan. 26, 1887. He attended grade
and
highschools in Washington D.C., was
appointed to the naval
academy from
Oklahoma in 1905 and was graduated in
1910.
In 1915 he underwent flight
training at
the Pensacola, Fla.,
naval air station
and received his wings in June,
1916.
Three years later he piloted
the NC-1 on
the navy's first
transatlantic
flight. Survivors include his
widow, Mrs.
Frances Smalley Mitscher,
his mother,
Mrs. Oscar A. Mitscher
of Hillsboro,
Wis., and a sister, Mrs. Hugo Noevel of
Okmulgee,
Oklahoma. Funeral
arrangements had
not been
completed
Monday afternoon. The death of
Admiral
Mitscher marked the passing of a
truly
great American, Rep.
Mike Monroney (D.,
Okla.) told the house of represenatives
Monday.
Mitscher "did as much as
any one man to
turn the
tide or war from
defeat to victory in the Pacific,"
Monroney
said. "I am sure the
entire
congress joins with me in
expressing
regret
at the passing of this great heroic
American."
Source: The
Oklahoman Feb. 4, 1947 Page
13 |
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T. O. Mitscher, Son of Former Mayor, Is
Dead
Services
for Thomas Oscar
Mitscher, 58, of 1139
N. Central, will be held at 9 a.m.
Friday in the
Street & Draper
funeral chapel, with
burial
in Rose Hill
cemetery. He died early Wednesday
in St.
Anthony hostpial of a heart
ailment. A lifelong resident
of
Oklahoma City,
Mitscher was born here October 31,
1894. Ill health forced him to
retire last April as a
bookkeeper for
the
Leibmann Ice Co., a position he had held
for many years. He was the son of
O.A. Mitscher, early
mayor of Oklahoma
City, and the brother of Vice-Adm. Marc
A.
Mitscher, commander of naval aviation
in
the Pacific during
World War II who died
in February, 1947. Surviving are
his wife, Agripha,
of the home; one
daughter, Martha Zoe
Mitscher, of the
student's nursing home, St Anthony
hospital;
four sons, Thomas Mitscher
Jr., of the
home; Gene Mitscher,
called home on
emergency leave from the marines in
Korea; and
Marc and Bud Mitscher,
Oklahoma City;
and one sister, Mrs. Zoe
Hoevel, 220 E.
Park Place.
Source: The
Oklahoman July
9, 1953 Page 13 |
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Death Claims Mrs. Hoevel, City
Pioneer
Tulsa--Mrs.
Zoe
Mitscher
Hoevel, 79, a
former Oklahoma
City resident,
died
Sunday at her son's home in Tulsa.
Services are
pending at St. Louis,
Mo. Mrs.
Hoevel was born in
Wisconsin, and made
the RUn of 89 with her parents.
She
was the duaghter of the late O. H.
Mitscher, Oklahoma City's
second Mayor,
who
served from 1892 until 1894. Mrs.
Hoevel also was a sister of the late
Vice Adm. Marc A.
Mitscher, commander of
naval aviation in the Pacific during
World War
II. In Oklahoma City,
Mrs. Hoevel
lived at 229
E. Park Pl.,
and was a former society reported for
The Daily
Oklahoman. She was a
member of St.
Pauls Episcopal
Church. Survivors
inde one son, Kenneth,
Tulsa
Source:
The Daily
Oklahoman Feb. 21, 1966 Page
33
HUGO HENRY
HOEVEL
Hugo
Henry Hoevel, former
Okmulgee hotel
operator, died Wednesday afternoon in
his home,
229 N.W. Park, after a heart
attack. He had been in fair
health.
Hoevel moved to Oklahoma
City two years
ago from
Okmulgee, where
he owned and operated the Belmont hotel
eight
years. He also formerly
lived in
Tulsa. A member
of the Lutheran
church and a thirty-second degree Mason,
Hovel
will be buried in his native St.
Louis,
Mo. Funeral
services there will be
directed by Hermann funeral home.
Local arrangements
were by Smith &
Kernke funeral
home. Surviving are
his wife, Zoe M. Hoevel, home
address; a
son,
Kenneth O., Tulsa; a brother, Oscar, St.
Louis, Mo.; and a sister, Mrs. Ida
Wurmb, also of St.
Louis.
Source:
The Daily
Oklahoman Jan. 5, 1950 Page
9 |
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