Leona Belle Pogue

Memorial services will be held Wednesday, September 19, 2007 at 2:00 pm at Cleveland First Baptist Church, Cleveland, Oklahoma for Mrs. Leona Pogue with the Rev. Dale Gowdy officiating. Mrs. Pogue passed away quietly Saturday morning at lntregis Grove General Hospital while struggling with complications of congestive heart disease. She was 78.

Mrs. Pogue was born July 12, 1929 in Cleveland, Oklahoma, the oldest daughter of Leo Garth Weldon and Ruby Irene Storm Weldon. She was raised on an oil field lease in the Cleveland Oil Field. Leona attended Cleveland Public Schools. At 15 years of age, after her mother's early death, she was thrust into the role of primary caregiver to her three siblings at a time of wartime rationing. After her high school graduation, she met and married Eugene W. Pogue of Keystone on August 31, 1947. The couple lived in Stillwater while Gene earned a degree and they started a family. They returned to the Keystone family farm for four years, moved to Sand Springs for six more years, before returning to the Keystone Lake area permanently in 1961.

Leona worked at the Cleveland Bank until she retired. She was very active in the First Baptist Church and later, the Westport Baptist Church, and active in the community. Her generous nature and good cheer made people glad that they had made her acquaintance. She was a devoted wife for over 50 years and a caring, inspirational mother to her two sons. She was preceded in death by Gene in 1999 and by both parents, Survivors include two sons and daughter-in-law, Edward Wayne and Bernadette Pogue of Los Angeles, California, and David Michael and Peggy Pogue of Grove; two brothers and sisters-in-law, Lewis E. and Evelois Weldon of Cleveland, Oklahoma, John P. and Ann Weldon of Tulsa; a sister, Mary Sue Hestand of Collinsville; and five grandchildren Connor M., Edward W., Ryan M., Margaret R. and Spencer T.

Mrs. Pogue's cremains will be interred in the Woodland Cemetery in Cleveland, Oklahoma. Arrangements are under the direction of Chapman-Black Funeral Home, Inc. The family requests donations made to the Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children, in lieu of flowers.