John Elmer Mabee [31786]

  General Notes:

From the Maybee Society files. Not all data is verified. Say dates are estimates and are probably within 20 years. The Maybee Society keeps its data on The Master Genealogist�, and has been modified by Gary Hester?s WIT2NOTE� to form the GedCom file. This information is also available in a TMG file.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Anecdote. ³⁰⁶⁰ Eulogized upon his death as "Oklahoma's Mr. Philanthropy," John
Mabee and his wife, Lottie Jane, arrived in their adopted state
in 1907. Coming via Texas, where Mr. Mabee worked in a meat
packing plant and waited on tables in a hotel, the Missouri
natives homesteaded 160 acres in what is now Cotton County. As
a farmer, John Mabee met with little success, and delivered a
rural mail route to make ends meet. His fortunes changed two
years after his arrival in Oklahoma, when his homestead near
Randlett was leased to Carter Oil Company.
The leases in Cotton County proved to be just the beginning of
Mr. Mabee's career in the oil industry. Two phenomenal wells
drilled in Burkburnett, Texas, in 1919 were the start of Mr.
Mabee's operations, which mushroomed until Mabee Consolidated
Corporation was the world's largest oil well drilling
contractor. From his offices in the Atlas Life Building, Mr.
Mabee's business interests diversified to include banking,
insurance, real estate and ranching (one Hereford cattle ranch
near Midland was comprised of 110 square miles).
Mr. Mabee's second career was the business of philanthropy.
Although he eventually held honorary doctorates from two
universities, he admitted that his education went "only through
the third reader." His gifts to educational institutions
throughout the Southwest would provide the educational
resources he lacked to the next generation. In Tulsa, his
generosity was boundless. A short list of institutions
benefiting from his largess includes the Community Chest, the
YMCA, Children's Medical Center, Hillcrest Hospital, Boston
Avenue Methodist Church and The University of Tulsa.
Mr. Mabee's business-like approach to giving money away led him
to found the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation in 1948. Through
this foundation, Mr. Mabee's generosity was sustained after his
death in 1961, and his magic of turning oil into bricks and
mortar continues today.

• Residence: 29th & Zuna, Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma. ⁵³¹⁹

• No Name, 1880, Kingston, Caldwell County, Missouri, USA. ³⁰⁶² John Elmer Mabee appeared on the census of 1880 in the
household of Simon Peter Maybee and Mary Jane Shuffler
Kingston, Caldwell County, Missouri

• No Name, Jun 1900, Marion, Dade County, Missouri, USA. ⁵³²³ John Elmer Mabee appeared on the census of Jun 1900 in the
household of Simon Peter Maybee and Mary Jane Shuffler Marion,
Dade County, Missouri

• No Name, 1948, Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma, USA. ⁵³²¹ In 1948, John and Lottie formed The J. E. and L. E. Mabee
Foundation, Inc., a Delaware non-profit corporation., with its
office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As stated in its charter, the
purposes of the Foundation are to aid Christian religious
organizations, charitable organizations, institutions of higher
learning, hospitals and other organizations of a general
charitable nature. The Mabee Foundation makes grants in the
states of Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New
Mexico. It was the feeling of John and Lottie that their wealth
had come from this area and they wanted the benefits of the
Foundation to be spent in that area. The Foundation continues
to honor that feeling and confines its grants to that
geographical area. From its beginning to 1989, the Mabee
foundation made grants totaling approximately 250 million
dollars.
See the website at www.mabeefoundation.com.
Directors include John H. Conway, Jr. in Tulsa and Joe G. Mabee
and his son J. Guy Mabee, Jr.

John married Lottie Estrella Boren [31339] [MRIN: 5941] on 6 Apr 1900 in Golden City, Barton County, Missouri, USA.⁵³²⁵ (Lottie Estrella Boren [31339] was born on 17 Sep 1879 in Missouri, USA ⁵³¹⁹ and died on 21 Oct 1965 in St. Francis Hospital, Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma, USA ⁵³²⁵.)

  Noted events in their marriage were:

• Land, 1907, Comanche County, Oklahoma. ⁵³²⁵ Shortly before Oklahoma entered statehood in 1907, John decided
he and Lottie (he often called her Lottie Jane) would try to
homestead in what was to become a new state. John made a brief
trip to Oklahoma to look over 160 acres of land and compare it
with government field notes. They looked pretty correct. He
talked to some of the other people that were out there looking
at the land and went back to Missouri and bid from the field
notes. He said, "The 160 acres that I got was described in the
field notes as 140 acres of tillable land, but it was the
poorest 160 acres in Oklahoma. When I went to prove up on it, I
had my neighbors for witnesses and the old Judge asked my
neighbors how much land I had in cultivation and my neighbor
told him that I didn't have any and that I had to plow up part
of the section line to get a place big enough for a garden."

"We built a little house on it, dug a well and got gyp water.
Our place was close to a creek that was called íDeep Red'.
There was lots of red sand that blew in the water. There were
lots of cyclones around there. Snyder, Oklahoma, was blown away
three times that spring by cyclones, so we dug us a storm cave.
There were lots of rattle snakes there and after we dug the
storm cave, Lottie Jane and I were afraid to go in the cave on
account of the rattle snakes and we were afriad to stay out
because we were afraid we'd be blown away. We drank the gyp
water and both of us took down with the typhoid fever."

• Census, Apr 1910, Randlett, Comanche County, Oklahoma, USA. ⁵³²⁶ John Mabee, Head, M, W, 30, M1, 10, Arkansas, Arkansas,
Illinois, Stockman, Buying Stock, owns home
Lottie E. Mabee, Wife, F, W, 30, M1, 10, no children, Missouri,
Arkansas, Illinois, none

• Census, Jan 1920, Walters, Cotton County, Oklahoma, USA. ⁵³²⁷ John E Mabee, Head, M, W, 40, M, Missouri, Illinois, Kansas,
Mule skinner
Lottie E Mabee, Wife, F, W, 40, M, Missouri, Illinois,
Illinois, housewife

• Census, 7 Apr 1930, 810 South Elgin, Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma. ⁵³²⁸ John E Mabee, Head, M, W, 57, M@19, Illinois, Illinois,
Illinois, Drilling Contractor for an Oil Well
Lottie E Mabee, Wife, F, W, 40, M@21, Missouri, Illinois,
Missouri

• Anecdote, 1948, Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma, USA. ⁵³²¹ In 1948, John and Lottie formed The J. E. and L. E. Mabee
Foundation, Inc., a Delaware non-profit corporation., with its
office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As stated in its charter, the
purposes of the Foundation are to aid Christian religious
organizations, charitable organizations, institutions of higher
learning, hospitals and other organizations of a general
charitable nature. The Mabee Foundation makes grants in the
states of Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New
Mexico. It was the feeling of John and Lottie that their wealth
had come from this area and they wanted the benefits of the
Foundation to be spent in that area. The Foundation continues
to honor that feeling and confines its grants to that
geographical area. From its beginning to 1989, the Mabee
foundation made grants totaling approximately 250 million
dollars.
See the website at www.mabeefoundation.com.
Directors include John H. Conway, Jr. in Tulsa and Joe G.
Mabee and his son J. Guy Mabee, Jr.

  Marriage Notes:

they had no children together