His Death comes Unexpectedly In Rochester Hotel

The body of John Albert Brown, 61, years old, who died unexpectedly of heart disease Thursday afternoon in his hotel room at Rochester, Minn. will be forwarded to Oklahoma City Friday. Mrs. Brown will accompany the body.

Brown's Death Held Great Loss

Word of the death of John A. Brown Thursday brought immediate expressions of eulogy from leaders in state, city and social life.

These included: Governor Phillips It is a distinct shod: to lose a man like John A. Brown. The city and the whole state will feel deeply the loss of such a man.

Mayor Hefner-We are shocked beyond words to express our grief in the loss of a man who has given his life to the upbuilding of our great city. His life illustrates that the service a man performs is the rent he pays for the space, he occupies. He occupied a treat space in the life of he City and paid a great rent in service.

W. S. Bulkley - I feel is one of the the biggest. losses Oklahoma City has ever had... one we will feel for many years. While Mr. Brown and I were competitors we were close friends and neighbors.

Jerome Hernstein-He was acknowledged for years as one of Oklahoma's outs anding merchants

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Tom Baugh-I don't fret competent to express the loss the city and the mercantile business have suffered in his passing.

Dr. A. C. Scott- We have been very good friends for years and his death is a deep personal shock. He has been very active and helpful in every civic enterprise.

Dr. John R. Abernathy - I first knew him in 1908 when he started his
store in Guthrie and have been closely associated with him in church and fraternal work since. I regarded him as one of the most valuable lay members of our church in the state. He took great interest in our school. Oklahoma City University and contributed most generously to it.

see more about John A. Brown store at DougDawgz Blog

Wide Activity Marked
Life Of City Merchant

Self-Made Man, He Headed Many Civic
Enterprises Here

The impressive career of an Ohio farm boy who thought ambitiously worked energetically and achieved greatly was ended Thursday with the death of John A. Brown, Oklahoma City civic and business leader.

John A. Brown was prominent in not one but multifold activities. Working dawn-to-dusk hours at the department store which hears his name. he took time actively to participate in church, Chamber of Commerce. retail merchants, civic and social club, and numerous other programs.

But his remark, upon his selection as Oklahoma City's most useful citizen in 1930. that "I'm not so hot." typified his attitude toward his own accomplishment.

A Self-Made Man
The story of his life belied that statement. He was of all people a self-made. man. John A. Brown was horn on a farm near Canton. Ohio. Sept. 28, 1878.
His father, C. D. Brown. operated a sawmill. and the mill and crops gave the son an early taste of hard labor. His education didn't come easy.

Between harvest he studied his numbers. Between milkings he studied his spelling. Between threshings he read history books.

By the time he finished the seventh grade at the nearby rural school,  his teachers and classmates thought that his home work and earnestness had made him as well educated as the school could hope. John went to work on father's 100-acre farm.

Began at Emporia
His career might  have been confined to the farm if his father hadn't had a sister in Altamount, Mo. Her son, A. O. Rorabaugh. had a small mercantile store in Emporia, Kan.  On Christmas, 1900, she invited her brother and his family to visit. John didn't go back to the farm. He went to Emporia with Rorabaugh: and at the age of 21 years made his first step up the mercantile business ladder. He was a window trimmer at first. Hoping for more than a life as a window trimmer, for he like his new field, he decided his education should be better. So he went to Baldwin, Kan. and attended Baker University a year. On his return to Emporia, he stayed with the Rorabaugh store until 1907.

Oklahoma Beckoned
Stories of the new state, Oklahoma, intrigued him. For the same reason he had returned to school, he started for Oklahoma, and bigger opportunity. He went to Guthrie.

Although Brown himself  worked hours of which no union could approve, labor relations with his employees were pleasant. There are about 530 employees in the city store.

Indicative of the relationship. more that 100 employees and guests honored Brown  several years ago with a memorial dinner. They presented him: with a testimonial, signed by all his workers,  in which he was called -honest, sound from center to circumference. true to the heart's core."

He was married to Della Dunkin of Guthrie. July 28, 1909.

Not Well Recently
The union was a happy one, Mrs. Brown was with him in Rochester, just as she had been with him on most of his business trips. Two years ago they spend the summer in Europe.

When Brown went to Minnesota for a visit to the Mayo Clinic, he hadn't been feeling well, but his health was considered good. Mr. and Mrs. Brown left December 31 and had been in Rochester since.

The day before his departure on Saturday, Brown went to his office and worked until late. He has kept in frequent touch with the store. Writing letters nearly every day to give instructions, and he sent a telegram, Wednesday.
 

December 1954 Christmas newspaper ad.