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FREDERICK E. TUCKER
Vol. 3, p. 1062-1063

Becoming a resident of the Territory of Oklahoma when he was a lad
of about ten years, Senator Tucker has in an individual sense kept
pace with the march of progress in this vigorous young commonwealth,
where he has made good use of the opportunities presented, has stood
exponent of ambitious purpose and distinctive civic loyalty, and
where his material success has been in consonance with his ability
and well directed endeavors, the while his distinct hold upon popular
approbation needs no further voucher that the statement that he has
most efficiently represented the Eighteenth Senatorial District in
the Upper House of the Oklahoma Legislature during its fourth and
fifth general assemblies. He maintains his home at Ardmore, Carter
County, has been an influential figure in connection with educational
affairs in the state, and is a progressive and public-spirited young
man who well merits recognition in this history of Oklahoma.

Frederick Edward Tucker was born at Mount Vernon, Franklin County,
Texas, on the 20th of September, 1889, and is a son of Frederick A.
and Nannie TUCKER, both of English lineage. Frederick A. Tucker was a
pharmacist by vocation and a Georgian by birth, his father being a
member of the well known Virginia and Georgia family of that name but
his parents migrated to Texas after the panic known as Black Friday,
becoming early settlers of the old Town of San Augustine. Frederick
entered business at the Town of Mount Vernon when a young man and
there the subject of this sketch was born. Nannie MCCOWN Tucker is a
native of Harrison County, Texas, the youngest daughter of Abram and
Elizabeth MOORE ROACH, the history of both families of whom
corresponds with that of the Tuckers, except that they were from
North Carolina to Alabama and then to Texas. The McCowns and CONNORS
establishing the Texas towns of those names. Abram Roach upon
removing from North Carolina to Texas, first became a planter of
Harrison County, but when his youngest daughter was three years of
age, he acquired the ELI estate near Mount Vernon, where he spent the
remainder of his life - a prosperous and honored member of that
plantation community.

Owing to the conditions of time and place Senator Tucker was never
able to attend school until he was nearly then years of age. He came
with his widowed mother to Oklahoma Territory and settled at Ardmore,
on the 7th of May, 1899, about four months prior to his tenth
birthday anniversary. At Ardmore he continued his studies in the
public schools until he had completed the curriculum of the high
school, in 1909 and through attending summer normal schools he
further fortified himself for the vocation of teacher. He obtained a
normal training certificate and also a first grade certificate, each
of which entitled him to teach in any county in the state, and in
making his way forward to worthy achievement he depended almost
entirely on his own efforts and resources. In 1909 he became an
advertising solicitor for the Daily Oklahoman, at Oklahoma City, but
he resigned the position within a few weeks, as the salary was not
sufficient to satisfy his ambition. He then obtained employment at
Muskogee, as salesman for a firm engaged in the flour and feed
business, and while thus engaged he had occasion to visit the City of
Ada, judicial center of Pontotoc County, where Otis WEAVER, publisher
of the Oklahoma Baptist Journal, tendered him a position as editor
and manager of this periodical, with the alternative of receiving a
commission in the event that he found a purchaser for the property.
Within five days thereafter Senator Tucker sold the paper and
received a good commission. Mr. Weaver then sold to him the plant and
business of the Konowa Chief-Leader, in Seminole County, and after he
had been editor and publisher of this paper a few weeks he received a
telegram announcing that he had been elected principal of the public
schools of Milburn, Johnston County. He promptly severed his active
association with newspaper work and for nine months he served as the
valued and efficient principal of the Milburn schools, at a salary of
$100 a month. In the meanwhile he had sent announcement to Carter
County, where he maintained his home, that he would there become a
candidate for county superintendent of public instruction at the next
regular election. In 1910, when but twenty years of age, he was
nominated for this office, to which he was elected by a gratifying
and significant majority. After his nomination, and prior to the
election, he made a careful study and survey of public-school systems
and conditions in various states, and for this purpose he visited ten
counties in Oklahoma, ten in Texas, three in Missouri, one in
Illinois, and two in Pennsylvania. He gave a most progressive and
effective administration and did much to bring the schools of Carter
County up to their present high standard. He was elected
representative of the Eighteenth District in the State Senate in
1912, and to assume his seat as a member of the Fourth Legislature he
resigned his position as county superintendent of public instruction.
He has the distinction of being the youngest man elected to the
Senate in the history of the State of Oklahoma, and those familiar
with his course as a legislator fully realize that to him vigorous
youth has proved no handicap, for he has shown the utmost
circumspection and marked maturity of judgment in his services and
earnest work on the floor of the Senate and in the deliberations of
the various committees to which he has been assigned.

In the Fourth Legislature Senator Tucker was chairman of the
committee on education and became author of the bill defining the
present code of the public schools of the state, the text of this
bill filling ninety-seven printed pages in the 1913 Statutes and
being the most voluminous, as well as one of the most carefully and
effectively conceived, legislative documents on the records of this
commonwealth. Senator Tucker is to be credited also with the
authorship of the law that provided for the transfer to union graded
or consolidated schools the balance of the public-school land fund in
the state treasury; and further work achieved by him was his able
advocacy of the measures resulting in the establishment of the State
School for the Blind, at Muskogee.

In the Fifth Legislature Senator Tucker was chairman of the
committee on Federal relations and introduced several measures
recommended by the American Commission on Uniform Laws. He was a
member also of the committees on appropriations, oil and gas,
commerce and labor, revenue and taxation, mines and manufacturing,
education and school lands. He vigorously championed in the Senate
measures approved by the State Federation of Labor and was the author
of a bill providing an eight-hour day for women employed in
industrial, commercial and general business occupations. He was the
author of a bill authorizing the state treasurer to purchase out of
the public-building fund the residue of a $300,000 bond issue and to
place the proceeds of the sale to the credit of the union graded or
consolidated school fund. Among other bills introduced by him was one
making more stringent regulations relative to marriage and divorce.
In politics the senator has been found arrayed as an uncompromising
and effective advocate of the principles and policies of the
democratic party, and he is influential in its councils in Oklahoma.

Senator Tucker is a member of the Ardmore Chamber of Commerce, is a
directory of the Oklahoma Historical Society, and is an active member
of the Oklahoma Teachers' Association. He holds membership in the
Baptist Church. The senator is now engaged in the real-estate and
insurance business and is prominently identified also with the oil
industry, as president of the Bess Tucker Oil Company, of Ardmore,
which was named in honor of his wife, which made the first discovery
of oil in Jefferson County, and the holdings of which are now a part
of the celebrated Healdton oil field.

At Guthrie, this state, on the 8th of October, 1913, was solemnized
the marriage of Senator Tucker to Miss Elizabeth Frances GANO, whose
father was for many years an influential banker and oil operator of
Dallas, Texas, and whose maternal grandfather, Judge Thomas T. LOWE,
was territorial secretary of Oklahoma under the administration of
President CLEVELAND. Senator and Mrs. Tucker have one child,
Elizabeth Claire, who was born July 25, 1914. Of the brothers and
sisters of the senator brief mention is made in conclusion of this
article: R. E. is a merchant and ranch owner at Toyah, Texas; K. C.
is engaged in the live stock business in the same locality; F. C.,
who was a civil engineer by profession, died in 1912; Mrs. William B.
STEWART resides in Los Angeles, California, her husband being a
retired business man and substantial capitalist; Miss Willie remains
with her widowed mother at Toyah.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Sherry Van Scoy Hall, November 3, 1998.