Joe Willard Raymon

Funeral services for Joseph Willard Raymon were held at 10 a.m. Friday, August 16, 2019, in the Sien-Shelton Funeral Home Chapel. Interment followed in the Chelsea City Cemetery under the direction of the Sien-Shelton Funeral Home.

Joe Raymon died peacefully at Bailey Medical Center in Owasso on August 12, 2019. He was born July 5, 1935, in Barnsdall, Oklahoma to Gilbert and Elizabeth Raymon. He is survived by his daughter, Amber Raymon, and her husband, Bill Denison, by his son, Jason Raymon, and his wife, Dawn Raymon, by his granddaughters, Kayla Merchant and Carolann Merchant, and many nieces and nephews, as well as his beloved cat, Sandy, who was his constant companion for the last five years. He was preceded in death by Evelyn, his wife of 51 years, in 2012, and by his parents and five brothers and sisters.

The Raymon family moved from Barnsdall in 1945 when they purchased a farm near Sedan, Kansas. Joe graduated from Sedan High School in 1953. In high school, he was active on Student Council, in the FFA and football and track, in addition to helping his father farm 500 acres. After graduation, he attended the University of Tulsa as well as Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas. He returned to Tulsa where he worked for American Airlines, receiving at least two promotions, before his supervisor advised that he could not be promoted further until he completed his military service obligation. Joe served in the United States Airforce from 1956-1960, where he completed accounting school and was assigned to the U2 photo reconnaissance program. Following his stint in the Air Force, Joe again enrolled at the University of Tulsa and was a year away from completing his degree when he met Evelyn at a fraternity dance at the downtown Tulsa YWCA. They married on June 1, 1962. Their daughter, Amber, was born in 1963, and son Jason, in 1965.  

Joe worked multiple jobs to support his family, interviewing businesses and writing credit reports for Dun and Bradstreet during the day, and fielding telephone inquiries about individual credit ratings for Retail Merchants in the evening. Eventually, his Dun and Bradstreet employer decided that was a conflict of interest, so he resigned from Retail Merchants and began working evenings at Bud’s Thrifty Wise in Tulsa.

A taxi cab driver he met while working there needed help doing his taxes, and Joe’s career as a “tax man” was born. He worked for Gulf Oil Company as a credit analyst for several years, but upon their departure for Houston, he and Evelyn chose to remain in the Tulsa area. Joe built a tax and bookkeeping business that spanned multiple generations in many families with hundreds of clients throughout northeastern Oklahoma and beyond. The family briefly relocated to Hawaii in 1976, where Joe also had an accounting practice, and he eventually went to work fulltime for Ramparts in Sand Springs until he retired from full-time corporate work in 1997. He actively continued his accounting practice, enjoying interactions with dozens of clients.

Joe loved a good card game and made sure that his children and grandchildren were well-versed in the rules of pitch, gin rummy and various poker games at an early age. He was a keen chess player, and an avid lover of World War II movies. He was loved for his kindness, wit and counsel to family and friends, and will be missed by all who knew him.

Funeral services were entrusted to Sien-Shelton Funeral Home.

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