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- Oklahoma: A history of ths state and its people (1929)
James Milton Bass
JAMES MILTON BASS? A prominent and progressive business man of Oklahoma City was the late James Milton Bass, owner of large stores in that city and other Oklahoma towns. He was born in the old town of Waverly, Walker County, Texas, February 6, 1872, son of James M. and Laura (Cunningham) Bass, who were also natives of that town. The father, who served throughout the Civil War as a solider of the Confederate Army, was a merchant and plantation owner. After retiring from active business life, he moved to Houston, Texas, where he died in 1911, survived by his widow, who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The earlier years of James Milton Bass, the son, werer spent in Elgin and Bastrop, Texas, where his education was acquired. He then went to Fort Worth, where for a time he found employment in a wholesale establishment. In Thurber, Texas, he was general manager of the store which supplied the ned of the miners, and remained there for a year. His next move was to Gainesville, Texas, wehre he utilized the experience and knowledge he had gained by embarking in the furniture business, in association with Mr. Haroub under the firm name of Bass and Harbour. Prosperity enabled the firm to move to Oklahoma City in 1902, where the business continued to flourish until 1910, when the partnership was dissolved. Mr. Bass then conducted the business as a corporation under the name of the Bass Furniture & Carpet Company, building up a trade of extensive proportions and meeting with a gratifying success through the careful and capable control of his interests. He erected for the sole use of the Bass Furniture Company, a modern and up-to-date building of six stories and basement, which, like the business, remains in the hands of his family. Among the varied interests of this wealthy and important self-made man were farming, oil properties, and stores in Tulda, Ardmore, and El Reno, Oklahoma. Mr. Bass also erected the Insurance Building, one of the large office structures of Oklahoma City. His ability, his integrity, his high ideals of service all won for him the respect of a large community and merited success.
In other departments of civic life, Mr. Bass also bore a prominent part. He belonged to the Free and Accpeted Mason and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, as well as the Chamber of Commerce, the Lions Club, and the Men?s Dinner Club. At one time he was president of the Oklahoma Golf and Country Club. One of the organizes of the Young Men?s Christian Association, he remived a director of that body and prime mover in all charitable and civic enterprised. One of his marked characteristics was his solicitude for his employees, who numbered eighty or ninety in the various cities of Oklahoma in which his interests were located. His political adherence was given to the Democratic party. A communicant of the Methodist Episcopal church, he was trustee and steward of St. Luke?s Church.
August 5, 1892, James Milton Bass married Willie Irby Smith, daughter of William Irby and Barbara (Lambard0 Smith, both native of Alabama. Mrs. Bass survives her husband and was president and principal owner of the Bass Furniture and Carpet Company after his death until its reorganization in April, 1927, when all of the interests of the Bass Furniture and Carpet Company passed into the hands of the Bass family and the active management of the business was take over by his younger brothers, Thomas Oscar Bass, formerly of Muskogee, Oklahoma, and Horace T. Bass, his only son. Mr. and Mrs. Bass were the parents of three children: 1. Janice Madelyn, born March 21, 1893, wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles A. Thuis, on General Staff in Washington. 2. Louise Orlene (Bass) Berry, mother of two children: Madaline
Yvonne, born June 28, 1917, and Louise Orlene, born August 8, 1923. 3. Horace Thurber, born January 6, 1904, who was a student at Cornell College; married Irene Turner Naden, by whom he has two children: James Milton (3), born January 8, 1924; and Jeanne Elizabeth, born May 23, 1925.
Death ended a career of great future promise when Mr. Bass died, February 16, 1921, at the early age of forty-nine. His was a genius for business-building which found expression in the corporation and stores he headed and which proved a community asset in the matter of service and of stimulus to general prosperity. His enthusiasm for his fellow-man was real and contructive, and his ideals of citizenship high. In his home he was the kindly and well-loved father, wise in his relations with the children he loved, happy in his assocations with his wife and their warm-hearted hospitality. He represented the deal type of self-made American which is one of the heroic concepts of this country.
1880 Federal Census of Walker County, Texas
J.D. Cuningham - 57 - Male - South Carolina - Farmer
Margaret Ann Cuningham - 51 - Female - Alabama - Wife - Housekeeping
L.A. (Laura) Bass - 35 - Female - Alabama - Daughter (Married)
John Cunningham - 32 - Male - Alabama - Son - Lawyer
J.D. Cunningham - 28 - Male - Alabama - Son - Lawyer
G.M. Cunningham - 14 - Male - Alabama - Son - At School
James M. Bass - 37 - Male - Louisiana - Son-in-Law - Merchant
J.N. Bass - 8 - Male - Texas
R.C. Bass - 6 - Male - Texas
T.O. Bass - 3 - Male - Texas
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Bassett Family Association Database
1872 - 1921 (49 years)