Love of the farm shapes Henry Bellmon's life

BILLINGS — It was no secret that while Henry Bellmon was governor of Oklahoma, he and first lady Shirley Bellmon went back to the farm in Oklahoma as often as they could on weekends.

Former Oklahoma Gov. Henry Bellmon poses outside his family's home near Billings. John Clanton, The OKlahoman

Even living in Washington as a U.S. senator couldn't keep Bellmon away from the farm east of Billings. Bellmon, 86, recently talked to The Oklahoman about his love of the land and what it taught him.

"His desire when he was in the Senate was to go back to Oklahoma every weekend and spend part of that time at the farm. Most of the time that desire was realized,” said Andrew Tevington, an assistant district attorney in Oklahoma County and Bellmon's press secretary in Washington and chief of staff and legal counsel while Bellmon was governor a second time.

Bellmon liked to be on the farm, getting his hands dirty and doing all the things farmers do, Tevington said.

"We always knew when he had been on the farm and had been working. It gave him time to think, and he would come back with more ideas than we could handle,” Tevington said.

"This was home,” Bellmon said of the farm. "You get your head cleared pretty quick.”

Bellmon's family

His father, George Bellmon, was a native of Kansas who had come to No Man's Land with his parents and lived in a dugout beside the Beaver River.

Bellmon's father's first wife died on Armistice Day at the end of World War I.

Bellmon's mother, who was the second wife of Bellmon's father, George, taught school and looked after her parents until they died.

Edith Caskey Bellmon was about 34, and Bellmon's father, was about 10 years older when they met and married.

Henry Bellmon was the oldest of the four boys of his mother, Edith, and his father, George. His father was a staunch Republican who worked as a teamster, but he always kept land.

He was kind of a philosopher who had many sayings, Bellmon said. One of the more important sayings was:

"You ain't learnin' nothing when you're talkin',” Bellmon said.

Bellmon took that philosophy into public life many years later.

"My mother managed to keep what I think of as a happy house, a happy home for four boys who were pretty competitive. I think she's probably the greatest woman I ever knew, with the exception of my wives. She was determined that we get good educations,” Bellmon said.

The last time he saw his mother was when he left to go into the Marine Corps.

She worked as a school teacher during the war until she got leukemia, and died while he was overseas.

Bellmon, a Marine tank commander, was part of a Marine group at Tinian Island getting ready to go to Iwo Jima for what would become a hellish battle.

Page 1 of 2

1 2 Next