Marion R. Tittle. In following the long and successful career of Marion R. Tittle, the impartial observer will gain a renewed appreciation of those homely, sterling qualities which, when allied with practical business sense, advance men from obscurity to prominence and from poverty to wealth. Of sturdy Scotch-Irish ancestry, Mr. Tittle was reared as the son of poor but honorable and honest parents. Even in his boyhood he displayed a strong and worthy ambition to succeed in life, and as the years passed his determination developed and strengthened, enabling him to overcome obstacles which to one of a loss energetic and courageous nature would have seemed insurmountable. Today he is accounted one of the most substantial business men of Westville–the possessor of a business and a property which are all the more satisfying, in that they have been entirely self-gained.

Mr. Tittle was born in Denton County, Texas, November 3, 1864, the eldest of the twelve children of Richard and Elizabeth (Farris) Tittle, his father being a native of Tennessee and his mother of Alabama. They were married in Texas, where Richard Tittle enlisted in a company raised in Denton County, Texas, for service in the Confederate army. He served with gallantry throughout the period of the Civil war and at its close resumed his farming operations in Texas, but in 1868 removed to Arkansas, and about two years later came to Indian Territory. Nine years later he returned to Texas for a short time but did not find conditions to his liking and soon again went to Arkansas, where he took up his residence on a farm in the vicinity of Charleston, continuing to be engaged in agricultural operations there for seven years. Again coming to Indian Territory, he passed the remaining years of his life here and died at Webbers Falls, at the age of sixty-seven years. The mother survived him for some time and passed away at the home of one of her sons, at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, being fifty-nine years old.

Marion R. Tittle received his education in the common schools, but being the eldest of his parents’ children he was expected to assist in the support of the family and a large part of the time that he would otherwise pass in the schoolroom was devoted to the work of the home farm. He was reared in the atmosphere of the farm, and when he was twenty years of age was granted his “ time” by his father, who also presented him with a horse, saddle and bridle, his sole capital when he entered upon his career as typified by material things. He was able to secure a plow on credit and fashioned a make-shift harness, the lines of which were largely made of the tops of old boots, cut into strips, and with this modest equipment started his career as a farmer. He was industrious and enterprising, worked early and late, and succeeded in raising good crops, so that he was soon able to put something by, and as the years passed finally secured the capital necessary to enter business life. His first experience in business life was not on his own account, however, but as a clerk in a general store at Webbers Falls. He was married in 1892 to Miss Jennie Belieu, and for the first two years thereafter was engaged in farming in the vicinity of Webbers Falls, and at the end of this time took his capital of $1,000 and invested it in a general store at Prairie Grove, Arkansas. He continued in business there with a good measure of success for seven years, and in 1900 came to Westville, Oklahoma, where he established the well known and successful firm of the Cherokee Lumber Company, with which he has continued to be connected. Shortly thereafter he opened a general store at Westville, which also prospered and has since grown to large proportions, being known as the M. R. Tittle Mercantile Company. Various other interests have received the benefit of his abilities and energy, and at present he is president of the People’s Bank of Westville and a member of the firm of Hall-Tittle Drug Company, of this city, in addition to which he owns considerable real estate here. Mr. Tittle’s entire career has been an expression of well-directed industry, always characterized by the strictest integrity. He has been alive to his opportunities and has made the most of them, but in doing so has never transgressed business principles and as a result his reputation is one which not only includes the respect of his fellow-citizens, but their confidence, esteem and friendship as well. He is a democrat in politics, but has not been desirous of favors at the hands of his party and his only public service has been in the capacity of school director. He is a Master Mason and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Mr. and Mrs. Tittle are the parents of the following children: Lola V., who is the wife of E. H. Graves, who is associated with Mr. Tittle in business; Nellie G., who is the wife of H. F. Hall, of the Hall-Tittle Drug Company; Marion Richard, Jr., who is attending a commercial college at Springfield, Missouri; and Lena, who resides at home with her parents.