Cleo Bartles

Cleo Bartles was born on 12 September 1924 in Collinsville, OK to Edward Russell Bartles and Cecil May (Rhea) Bartles. They later moved to Claremore to a 60 acre farm on Muskogee Street. His father also had a trucking business hauling freight and other things. He said when he was about twelve, he helped his father haul iron beams to the Verdigris River and they later became the first iron bridge over the river near Catoosa. He used to walk from their farm to the old Chambers school house, which means he would have walked across the land where his son Joe now lives. In those days the boys used to take their 22 rifles to school and the teacher would stack them in the corner until school was out, then the boys would hunt for supper on the way home. Try that today and they would call a SWAT team on you. He was inducted in the Army in 1943 and was trained to be a combat engineer and truck driver. He made the landings in France in June 1944 with the 206th Combat Engineer Battalion as they fought their way across Europe until the war was over. After the war he returned to Claremore found work as a dump truck driver and worked on various projects in the area and the Hulah Dam on Hulah Lake. He married Rosa Lee Driver on Dec. 26th, 1947 and also returned to his second love, the U.S. Army. This time he would be trained as a tanker at Ft. Knox, Kentucky and served in Armor units for the rest of his Army career. He was at Camp Hood, Texas in the 6th Tank Battalion in 1950 and was one of the first units to be sent to Korea after fighting broke out. He would go on to serve two tours in West Germany and two tours at Ft. Benning, GA. In his last tour in Germany, his unit was sent to Berlin to face off with the East German and Russian tanks as they began building the Berlin Wall. While stationed at Ft. Benning, GA, his unit was sent to Forida on stand-by for possible deployment to Cuba during the missile crisis. His unit was also sent to Birmingham, AL, during the 1963, race riots for riot control duty. During all of this, he and Rosa Lee also managed to have and raise three children, Diane their daughter and the oldest, and two sons, Joe and Edward. In those days the Army didn't pay very well so the family lived on a pretty tight budget, but the family always found a way to get by. A lot of hunting and fishing helped in the food department. He used to save his leave time to bring the family back to Claremore during hay season so he could help his father-in-law get the hay cut and bailed on the farm. The trip from Georgia to Oklahoma could be made on about $20.00 of gas and lots of bologna and cheese sandwiches. He decided to retire from the Army in 1965 and after a year of living in Georgia he moved the family back to Oklahoma in 1966. He got a job driving dump trucks again for a while and worked on various projects in the Claremore area. He also worked for many years as a maintenance man at Oklahoma Steel Castings in Tulsa, Oklahoma working on the big furnaces and other machines used in the process of making steel. Later he worked for the Rogers County courthouse as a janitor and maintenance man and also drove the civil defense fire truck for fighting brush fires. He also worked as a security guard for Burgess Norton in the Claremore Industrial Park at night. He finally retired for good about 1986 and spent most of his time fishing and raising his garden in his back yard. Cleo had a gruff exterior because the life he lead in the Army pretty much required it. But to those who really knew him knew he was a frend that could be counted on and he would do anything he could to help you.

Cleo was preceded in death by his parents; wife, Rosa Lee Bartles; great-grandson, Kage Tanner Green.

He is survived by his daughter, Diane Leonard and her husband, Anthony of Pine Mountain, GA, and sons, Joe Bartles and his wife, Sandi of Claremore, and Ed Bartles and his wife, Charlotte of Claremore; 7 grandchildren, 6 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great-grandchild.