thelma_joan_morrow

THELMA JOAN MORROW


"MANNFORD EAST RESIDENT HONORED IN MAGAZINE"
By Lisa Mancuso


From "The Mannford Eagle," Mannford, Oklahoma, August 12, 1987

In War-Time, 1945, she was a British Bobbie.

Today, at 62, she still drives a 2-ton wrecker service truck. That is, when she's not dispatching the calls.

And last month, she was honored in Tow Times Magazine, an international communications publication medium for the towing and recovery industry.

For the last seven years, Thelma Morrow, owner of Morrow's Auto Wreckers and Recyclers, has been Social Chairman of the Oklahoma Wrecker Owners Association, (OWOA).

According to the July, 1987 article, the OWOA has one of the country's best meeting schedules. Mrs. Thelma Morrow manages all "the whole shebang. Now don't your associations wish they had a clone of Thelma Morrow?"

"You don't have any idea how fortunate Oklahoma is to have the rules and regulations in the Wrecker Association and we make our own rules," Mrs. Morrow said. "The OWOA has one of the strongest lobbying voices in the country."

When Florida, New York and Australia were preparing to organize wrecker associations in their areas, they contacted the OWOA to model it after the Oklahoma organization. The National Wreckers Association is even modeling theirs after Oklahoma's, according to Mrs. Morrow.

"We've had calls from all over," she said.

Of her Manford-East business, Mrs. Morrow said, "We're clean. We have no axe to grind and we're trying to be very professional. The people who work for me are honest or they don't work for me. That's just the way it is."

Morrow's Auto Wreckers and Recyclers, located at 22121 West 41st Street, works closely, and always has, with the Highway Patrol, the City Police and other law enforcement agencies.

"We've never turned away a broken down law enforcement vehicle and have even made some movies with them," said Mrs. Morrow. (During the years of the grocery store, Mrs. Morrow fed them, too. They always seemed to know when there was food cooking, she said, and she enjoyed them and their visits.)

Mr. Morrow had become ill in 1960 and shortly thereafter, began building the grocery store, in 1961.

"Clay was about seven then," Mrs. Morrow recalled. "We'd have a little income and I'd still be at home to take care of Ray and Clay," she said. The Morrows' lived in the back of the grocery store for many years.

The wrecker and salvage was conceived in 1964 following the purchase of an old wrecker truck from Tulsa Wrecker.

"It was almost worn out but you couldn't tow cars without a wrecker and Daddy wanted a salvage yard," said Mrs. Morrow. "Back then, you could buy old cars for $5.00 apiece."

One day they purchased 180 vehicles. It took them 30 days to tow them home from out-of-state: one car at a time.

She kept pretty busy with the grocery store but, after Mr. Morrow passed away in March of 1977, she started to drive the trucks. After locking up the store at night, she became the night driver also as she had no other help except at the store.

"When I was on a night call, Bertha Griffith (who worked for Mrs. Morrow for 15 years) would take over. I could entirely depend on her to open up the store. She was the most honest and forthright lady I've ever met to this day. I would have been honored to call her a sister."

It has been an interesting life.

The vehicles they've acquired over their 42 years of business have produced some very interesting items: New bicycles still in the carton; lawnmowers (that worked well!); fruit jars full of change, clothes, blankets (which they sterilized and gave to needy families losing their homes in fires and other mishaps), fishing rods and reels (which Ray gave to about 20 youngsters at the Tulsa Boys Home), and quantities of liquor, usually by the gallons, some opened, some not.

"We've found just about anything you can imagine," she said.

The most shocking and funny find occurred following a tow.

"It was just like on TV," said Mrs. Morrow. "There under the driver's seat of the car, we found an attache case full of bundles of money!"

They recalled the Highway Patrol officer who had worked the incident and had him return to take a complete inventory of the contents. It turned out the gentleman owned a shopping mall and the case contained payroll for all of the mall's employees for the next day.

The case was returned upon request of the car owner.

"Whatever is left in a car that's towed will be safe. This is the way we operate," she said.

She recalled as a youngster, Clay, who was always tiny, used to love to remove the back seats of the autos towed in and crawl through to the trunk, unlatching it from the inside.

"This maneuver on Clay's part always resulted in less damage to the body of the automobile and also saved the trunk locks from being destroyed," said Mrs. Morrow.

She remains to this day, the only female who totally owns a wrecker company in the State of Oklahoma.

And there have been some trying times in the business, too. The grocery store burned to the ground on May 10, 1986. The Morrows' are curretnly in the process of rebuilding the present facility. They are expanding the new and used auto parts business. There will not be a grocery store.

Mrs. Morrow keeps busy assisting with the dispatching, as the telephones are answered 24-hours-a-day and driving when needed. She remains an active member of the OWOA and is on the Board of Directors for the Keystone Rural Gas No. 1 Company. (She was one of the active individuals going to the Corporation Commission in Oklahoma City to get the company formed.)

"I have no regrets about my life at all, except maybe, not having the chance to go to high school and college. I always gave the best I could - for my family, my business and my friends."

She was born Thelma Joan Wingate in Smethwick, in Staffordshire, England, to Frederic and Ada Wingate. In 1941, she became a British Bobbie, a profession she remained in until 1945.

During this time, most of her duties were war oriented. She was involved in intelligence communications and mapped bombs.

"When a bomb fell, we'd have to map out the area and send rescue help," Mrs. Morrow recalled. "We were always in the dungeons."

Whenever help was short, the Bobbies would go themselves to assist however they could.

"When you see you neighbors blown half away, and I have seen this, you go and do the best for them you can," she said. "I don't and never did, get uptights - until the situation was all over."

Thelma Joan Wingate and American Army Private Ray L. Morrow were married on August 11, 1945, after Morrow received emergency leave to return to England. (How did he manage an emergency leave and why would he want to return to war-torn England in 1945? Well, Thelma had gone to her parson and explained that she and Ray had gone to a party, had a few too many spirits, and that she was with child. Ha, Ha - Clay was 9 years and 11 months late!)

"We've done some weird and wonderful things," she said. "I loved that man and I wanted to get married enough to lie about it."

"We played everything according to Hoyle," she continued. "But, a time or two, we just dealt under the table."

After their marriage, Morrow went AWOL (Absent Without Leave) from the Army.

His reasoning was "why go to London for 12 hours when I have a wife in Birmingham (Smethwick)." It was at this point his wife prevented him from being court-martialed by letting it appear he was under police escort, back to his barracks after seven days of being AWOL. AWOL is a prison offense. (Another interesting point in the escort was that Morrow as out of her geographical jurisdiction.)

Mr. Morrow went back to Tulsa in 1945. Thelma followed in 1946. Shortly afterward, they relocated to the Mannford East area.

"My son was born the last day of November, 1954. I couldn't live with myself if I was a different nationality than my son. I had to be American, too," said Mrs. Morrow. "Now, I couldn't live anywhere else. America has been very good to me as has this community. And I, in turn, think I have been good to it. There's no comparison between England and America. One is small, the other is vast. I love America and I'm fortunate to be here."

Thelma Joan Morrow became a United States citizen on April 13, 1955.

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From "Mannford/Lake Keystone News Journal," Mannford, Oklahoma, November 23, 1988

THELMA MORROW, Morrow's Auto Recycler, came to the United States in 1946. She made three trips over on the Queen Mary and came to stay in the spring of 1946. She and her husband Ray built a grocery store in the fall of 1960 which was later destroyed by fire. After the fire, the building which houses Morrow's Auto Recycler, was built. They had one child Clay, but Thelma says she always wanted a house full. Thelma lost her husband in March 1977 but she and her son, Clay continue to run the business. Pictured here she is serving the many who come in for lunch, she calls them her adopted children. Not only does she feed the men who work there but feeds truck drivers, friends and Tulsa County Deputies such as Glenn Buckner and Gary Clark, who stop in daily for what ever goodies Thlma has cooked up. Thelma is a very special lady. She once served in England as a "Bobby". She is a delight to visit with.

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