Born: July 15, 1890, Honey Grove, Texas
Married: Maude Alma Ragsdale, September 24, 1911, Hollis, Oklahoma
Died: February 28, 1964, Oklahoma City
Born: July 16, 1895, Stamps, Arkansas.
Died: Nov 22, 1968, Oklahoma City
Both are buried in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
Owen, later known as “W. B.” or “Bill” Mead met Maude on August 29, 1910 in Dodsonville, Texas and they married a year later. Owen followed several trades during his lifetime. He stacked cottonseed bails when they first married. Later, he became a carpenter and helped to build a dam and cotton gin near Hollis. They moved around a great deal, following the carpentry trade. He helped to build Hotel Adolphus in Dallas and several buildings in Oklahoma City and Tulsa between 1915 and 1930.
When the Great Depression was at its height, the family moved in with Owen's brother and picked cotton one summer just to survive. By 1935, Owen landed a job as Singer Sewing Machine salesman and became known as “Bill" or “W.B.” (Wild Bill) because of the wild stories he loved to tell. He was quite successful as a Singer salesman and became manager of a store, first in Drumright, then in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
When World War II began, Singer closed its company and Bill became a grocer. He bought a store on McKinley Street in Sapulpa. When his son, Dick got out of the Navy, they went into business together in Carbondale, Oklahoma near Tulsa. After Dick went to work for a magazine company, Bill bought a store on North Division in Sapulpa. Eventually, he went bankrupt around 1950.
He worked for Pfaff Sewing Machine company for awhile but eventually bought another store in Oklahoma City, on South Shields. He worked there until he died.
Maude came to Hollis, Oklahoma in 1900 when she traveled by covered wagon with her parents from Palmer, Texas. She lived in Hollis until she was married. After Bill died, she returned to Hollis briefly but returned to Oklahoma City where she worked as a waitress in Capitol Hill until she died.