Jack Earl Cates

A memorial service for Jack Earl Cates, of Claremore, will be held on Friday June 17th 2022 at 1:00 p.m. at MMS-Payne funeral home.
Jack Earl Cates passed away on June 8th 2022.
Jack was born on June 12th in 1943 to parents Robert and Johnnie (Williams) Cates in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jack was raised in the Turley/Sperry area and graduated from Sperry High School in 1961. After high school he attended college NEO in Miami Oklahoma. It was during that time that he met and began dating JoAnna Clugston. They were married in Tulsa on June 7th 1963 and were married for Fifty-two years until her death in 2015.
In May of 1966, Jack enlisted in the United States Navy. After basic training, in Great Lakes, Illinois, he was stationed in Portsmouth Virginia. Jack served as a cook and baker aboard the U.S.S. Alstede, a cargo ship, used to deliver to other ships in the fleet around Europe.
Jack discharged out of the Navy in 1970, and he and JoAnna and their two year old daughter, Crecia moved back to Oklahoma. Jack went to work for Orkin Pest Control and then got a job with a farm and ranch supply company, Tony’s Chemical. The company relocated them to Denison Texas, where their son David was born. After a couple of years, they next moved to Tecumseh Oklahoma, where they added Johnny to the family. In 1977 they moved to Claremore where they lived until Tony’s went out of business. A new job opportunity took the family to West Plains Missouri, but after just one year, they returned to home to Oklahoma. Jack worked for a short time at the Rainbow Bread Factory and then got a job at The Country Store, a farm and ranch store located at 11th and Memorial in Tulsa. At that time they were living in Jack’s childhood home in Turley. The Country Store, eventually closed in the late nineties, and Jack decided to open his own feed store, he and JoAnna moved back to Claremore for the final time. Jack owned and operated, with JoAnna’s help, Midway Feed Store east of Claremore on Highway 20 until 2008, when health issues forced him to retire.
Jack was an outdoorsman all of his life. He was an avid coon hunter and spent many nights in the woods with his prized coon dogs, Bo, Mundo and Hoot. Jack and JoAnna loved to go fishing and camping. They were a pretty good dancing duo and loved to two-step.
Jack also loved sports and enjoyed coaching his daughter’s softball team for many years. He was proud of his children and grandchildren. And he loved traveling to watch the grandkids compete in softball, football, and basketball.
Because of his time in the Navy as a baker, Jack could also make a mean doughnut and cinnamon roll.
Jack never met a stranger and would most likely run into someone he knew wherever he went. H also knew every back road “short cut”, which he referred to as the scenic route, to almost anywhere he traveled.
In retirement, Jack could no longer hunt, but he still enjoyed fishing and traveling around with his faithful four legged companion, Buster. Many mornings were spent at “the office” aka Fiesta Mart, drinking coffee, shooting the breeze with his buddies and solving the world’s problems.
After suffering a stroke in 2019, Jack became a resident of the Claremore Veterans Center, where he spent many days at the big pond in the back, doing what he loved.
In the words of his Great Grandson Everett, “That Pap-Pa Jack is a good boy!” And he was….
He will be deeply missed by his family and many friends.
Jack, was proceeded, in death by his parents Robert and Johnnie Cates, infant son Robert Clinton Cates and beloved wife JoAnna.
He is survived by his daughter Crecia and husband Darren DeVore, and sons David and Johnny Cates. Grandchildren, Destrei and husband Chase Rohr, Zach and wife Kirby DeVore, Daniel DeVore and girlfriend Alex Stanbro, Darrek DeVore, Jamie Cates and Parker Cates.
Great Grandchildren, Iverson DeVore, Everett DeVore, Presley Rohr, Ezra Rohr and Isaiah DeVore.
Sister Patty and husband Jimmy Bushyhead.