Stonemason called back for tomb construction
ˆ
Stonework
Ray Stout was the special cutter for stone in the arches over doors and windows of the Will Rogers Memorial when it was built in 1938. A stone mason all his life, he died a 92 having visited he museum often with his family.
Ray Stout poured his heart into the mortar that held in place the stone for the arches in the Will Rogers Memorial. He had a special feeling about the Memorial because of his unusual meeting of Will Rogers during the 1930 unveiling of the Pioneer Woman statue in Ponca City.
He was a laborer in the stone quarry where the stone for the Pioneer Woman monument was cut. During his lunch hour he would hurriedly eat, then pick up a stonemason’s tool and work on the stone. The lead stonecutter took interest in him and let him cut one of the stones for the statue, the top southwest corner stone.
“At the dedication ceremony, Dad was standing at that corner with his hand on the stone,” said his son, Jack of Stillwater “Will Rogers, as he was talking to the crowd, stepped on Dad’s hand. Will hunted him up after the ceremony and apologized and they visited for a while.”
Stout signed on as an apprentice stonemason with that mason, Jock Burtrum, and served five years under his teaching. Burtrum worked on the Oklahoma State Capitol and met Governor E. W. Marland, who later selected him to be foreman for his mansion home.
Ray Stout was an apprentice through the building of the Marland Mansion in Ponca City and followed Burtrum to Tulsa for stonework.
It was his work on the Marland Mansion that got the master mason the Claremore job. E.W. Marland was governor during the 1938 construction and Marland’s friend, John Forsyth, was the architect. “Forsyth liked him and followed his jobs,” the son said. Ray Stout worked out of the Tulsa Bricklayer’s Union.
Stout was 30 years old and living at Skiatook when he was picked as a special cutter for the stone arches over the doors and windows at the Memorial, Stout’s son said.
“Dad always talked about the detailed angles for the stones in the arches over windows and doors so that keystones would fit property and arches not crack. Those detail angles were his specialty and he claims to have cut all the arch stone for the Claremore museum, “ Jack said.
John Little, Will Rogers Memorial building supervisor and veteran employee, said he had never noticed a crack in the arch stones.
Stout and his mason friend, Cliff Lang, from Burbank, were called back to the Memorial when the tomb was built about six years later. He was also asked o do the base for the Electra Waggoner statue of Will on Soapsuds.
Ray lived to be 92 and was masonry foreman for Manhattan Construction many years. He checked out his craftsman ship often when he and his son visit the Memorial.
Jack didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. His son, Bryan, who took a masonry class at Indian Meridian Vo-Tech and won the state masonry contest, didn’t work as a mason.
Jack Stout along his wife, Jodellel; Bryan and his wife, Debi; and daughter, Jill and her husband, Billy Halsted, plan to be here Nov. 2 to see how well Ray Stout’s work has held after 70 years.