Jerry was born in Midwest City on July 3, 1939. You would have thought he would have given up on life during the six excruciating months in 1955 and 1956 that he spent, alone, on his back, in the “Crippled Children’s Hospital.” With the Polio virus ravaging his legs and robbing him of the ability to ever move them again, and with the vaccine arriving in Oklahoma just a few months too late, his mother was dying of breast cancer and his father was suffering from a heart attack. But Jerry did not give up. He instead quite literally pushed himself upright, taught himself to walk again with arm crutches and heavy metal braces fastened to his legs, and he returned to high school for his Junior year, without a mom.
You would have thought he would have found it too difficult to move through the pre-elevator world of the 50’s and 60’s. But he didn’t. Jerry thrived. While in college as a Letters Major at the University of Oklahoma he leaned into life as a leader in student government and the Interfraternity Council. He married his high school sweetheart Charla Rae Hull in December 1960, and after the birth of his daughter Jennifer in October 1961, Jerry began the drive from Midwest City to Norman for his first day of law school in the Fall of 1962. When he arrived at Monnet Hall (the “Law Barn” back then), he discovered five flights of 64 stairs separating the front door from the library on the 5th floor. (As he once put it, “They were building an elevator at the time . . . but I only got the shaft.”). Undeterred, with his two crutches in one hand, with his other hand on the railing, and with a bag of bulky law books draped around his neck, Jerry Tubb walked himself backward, step by step, up and down those 64 stairs for three years. He graduated second in his class.
You would have thought Jerry would have become needy, pessimistic, and maybe even jealous of others over the seven decades his body continued to fail him again and again and again, leaving him both paralyzed and without feeling below his chest in the last years of his life. But he never did. Jerry kept getting up, day after day - - in later years only with the help of his caregiver Kimberly Marshall (who once told him, “I will never leave you,” and she never did) - - and he kept treating each moment of life as a gift. He was always good-spirited, generous, and wise. He loved helping and inspiring everyone who crossed his path (and even some who didn’t) to live more joyous lives. He brought destitute clients (often owing millions of dollars) into his law office, showing them a photograph of the earth from the moon while reminding them, “Your challenges seem gigantic, but they aren’t. You can’t even see them from the moon.” He invented the phrase, “Craft a tool from the mud in which you are stuck,” and he lived that maxim every single day.
He delighted in giving gifts to make life easier for others, and he recently anonymously bought 200 ice creams for customers of Charlie’s Market in La Veta, Colorado. He sent fruit to fire men. He was genuinely funny. He often said, “If you have the chance to be right or kind, pick kind every time.” He disagreed without being disagreeable. He learned to ski. He never complained. He was kind and caring, taking others’ troubles on his back.
On Monday, May 22nd, at 4:55 p.m., Jerry died peacefully in his lovely home, finally free from corporeal limitations. He breathed his very last breath with his son’s arms around him, with his law partners at the foot of his bed telling him how much they loved him, and with the cardinals singing just beyond his bedroom, in the garden that he had so lovingly cared for and kept just the way Charla left it when she died two years earlier.
A complete retelling of the wonders and miracles Jerry brought to the world would fill every page of this newspaper today and many more, so there is no room to recount them all. If, however, you would like to be further inspired by his truly miraculous life, ask his daughter Jennifer Puckett and her husband Tony; his grandson Tony Sam Puckett and his daughter Artemis; his granddaughter Ava Wolf and her husband Brian, and their daughter Jane Charla; or ask his son Jeremy Tubb and his wife Julie, and their children Emily, Cameron, and Ethan; or ask his brother Jim; or maybe just ask any of the thousands and thousands of people whom Jerry helped, entertained, and inspired over his nearly 84 years on earth. Any of them will joyously, gratefully, and tearfully share more of Jerry Tubb’s unbelievable stories than you can imagine. . . and all of them are true.
We will be celebrating Jerry Tubb’s life at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, June 2, 2023, at the church he loved attending by television every Sunday, St. Luke’s Methodist Church, 222 NW 15th St., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 73103. Come join us. And, if you would like to experience the joy of participating in the legacy of Jerry’s generosity, consider supporting the Lynn Institute’s Hope Leadership Scholarship Program he helped create. (https://www.lynninstitute.org/donate/).
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