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- Greensboro Daily News, North Carolina, Wednesday, May 25, 1966
Furniture Executive Succumbs
Special To The Daily News
BASSETTSS, Va. ? John Douglas (Doug) Bassett Jr., 65, died Tuesday in a Roanoke hospital He was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Bassett Furniture Industries Inc.
Funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Pocahantas Bassett Baptist Church. The body will be at the home this morning until it is taken to the church Thursday at 11 a.m.
The family has requested that memorial contributions be made to the fund drive of Martinsville General Hospital.
Bassett had been seriously ill since last Thursday. He first became ill at his winter home in Hobe Sound, Fla., in March, and underwent surgery in Roanoke May 6 for a spinal collapse.
Bassett had headed the furniture manufacturing and sales complex since 1960, when he succeeded his late brother, W.M. Bassett. First president of the corporation was Bassett?s father, J.D. Bassett, who died last year at 98.
Bassett Furniture Industries Inc. is the world?s largest producer of dining room and bedroom furniture and employs 4,000 persons. Three years ago it entered the upholstered furniture field with the purchase of Prestige Furniture Co. at Newton, N.C.
Bassett first began working in one of his father?s plants when he was 12, and by the time he was 22 he was vice president of one of the companies that comprised the Bassett empire.
Bassett attended Blackstone Military Academy, Washington and Lee University and National Business College.
At the time of his death, Bassett was president of the First National Bank of Bassett and board chairman of Bassett Mirror Co., Bassett-Walker Knitting Co., Valley Veneer Co. and Burkeville Veneer Corp.
He was a director or an officer of various other enterprises, including the nation?s three major furniture exhibition buildings, including the one at High Point.
He was a trustee of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges, Roanoke College and Martinsville General Hospital. He was a member of the advisory committee for the Patrick Henry Branch of the University of Virginia in Martinsville.
He was a member of country clubs in Bassett, Martinsville and Hobe Sound, Fla.
Bassett is survived by his wife, Mrs. Lucy Akers Brown Bassett; daughters, Mrs. James Andrews of Martinsville, Mrs. D. H. Lane of Altavista and Mrs. Robert H. Stilman of Danville, wife of the executive vice president of Bassett Furniture Industries; a son, John D. Bassett III, a vice president of the corporation; a sister, Mrs. Thomas B. Stanley of Stanleytown. Her husband is a former governor of Virginia.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1901 - 1966 (65 years)
d. 26 Feb 1965, Virginia