Billy Joe Sires
Billy Joe Sires was born at Ochelata, Washington County, Oklahoma, on 21 April 1937. He was a son of Alvin C. "Chick" Sires and Ada Brown. In the census of 1940 he was Billie Joe, 3, in his parents' house in Madison Township, outside Ramona, with his brothers Donald and W. C., his sister Wanda and a baby sister. He went to school at Ochelata.
He enlisted in the United States Army and served from 1955 to 1958. He rose to sergeant in the 41st Artillery, on an anti-aircraft battery. There he learned to drive the M42 "Duster", a pair of 40 millimetre anti-aircraft guns mounted on a light tank chassis. When his hitch ended he changed branches and joined the Marine Corps. A little over a month later the Marines found he had lost much of his hearing in the Army. They rated him 50 per cent disabled and gave him a medical discharge.
In 1959 he met Jackie Sue Barnett of Bartlesville, who graduated from College High School that spring. That year and the next he coached American Legion baseball. The couple married at Miami, Oklahoma, on 20 February 1960, and made their home at Ochelata for the rest of their lives. In time they bought the Sires family homestead there.
He worked for several years as a ranch hand on the 4-S Ranch. Then the tank driving came back into use. He ran heavy construction equipment and laid pipeline for the H. C. Price Company, the pipeline builders. After that he worked closer to home for Thompson Dirt and Excavation, and counted its owner, Walt Thompson, a good friend. He was proud of the excavation jobs he had done around Bartlesville and Washington County. He retired in the early 1990s to care for his family, but kept taking small jobs until Walt Thompson died.
He hunted and fished all his life. He belonged to the Ochelata Sportsman's Club and was a long time member of the Osage Hills Wolf Hunters Association, where Jackie served as secretary. His dogs won a good many trophies, and the two of them took their camping trailer to the hunts. At home he kept the homestead up from the seat of his tractor. In the evenings he sat on the porch and whittled small wooden things to give away.
The couple had two daughters, Tammy Jo, who married Bill Peck, and Cassie. Jackie died at a nursing home in Dewey on 15 February 2017 and was buried at Ochelata Cemetery. He died at Bartlesville on 23 September 2021, aged 84, and was buried beside her under a stone that reads "Pa" over his name and "Granny" over hers.
Sources
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Cite: Heirology, "Billy Joe Sires (1937-2021)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/billy-joe-sires-1937-2021-d8fd0f.