The Shemwell Family

Victor Fitzgerald Barnett Obituary and Family Listing Victor F. Barnett Word has been received here of the death in Tulsa, Okla., of Victor F. Barnett, 74, a native of Rochester who was associate editor of The Tulsa Tribune and a civic leader in Tulsa for decades. Mr. Barnett last visited the city in 1963, when he recalled with pride that he got his first inspiration for a newspaper career from two of the city's earliest, most distinguished editor -- Henry A. Barnhart and Albert W. Bitters. He was a carried boy for The Sentinel, published by Barnhart, and later was printer's devil, press operator and reporter. On The Republican, owned by Bitters, he was a typesetter as well as reporter. Mr. Barnett died Feb. 26, after 12 years of failing health. Funeral arrangements and burial were in Tulsa. After leaving Rochester, he attended the University of Wisconsin and became sports editor of the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison. The newspaper was owned by Richard Lloyd Jones. Barnett became city editor, then managing editor of the paper in Madison before going to Chicago just before World War I. He became city editor, then managing editor of The Chicago Evening American. In World War I, he served two years with the Army, overseas as a second lieutenant in the infantry. After the war he returned to Chicago, but quit to rejoin Jones who had moved to Tulsa and bought The Tribune in 1919. Barnett went to Oklahoma City in 1920. He was managing editor of The Tribune for 15 years, then for five years was national advertising manager, becoming associate editor about 1940. In Tulsa, he was a commander of the American Legion Post, president of The Chamber of Commerce, in the latter post taking a leading role in locating the Douglas aircraft plant there. In 1942 he was appointed director of defense transportation in uTulsa and also was president of the eight-state Southwest Valleys Association, launching an effort to correlate the Arkansas river and its tributaries into an authority similar to Tennessee Valley Authority. His wife, the former Frances Large of Chicago, also took a leading part in Tulsa civic activities. she died in 1962. Also surviving are tow sons, Steele Barnett, Boise, Idaho and Fitzgerald Barnett, Tulsa; a daughter, Mrs. Jean Rowley, Houston, Texas; a sister in Montana, and ten grandchildren. Tuesday, March 5, 1968, Unknown Newspaper, probably Rochester, Indiana. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/179866571/victor-fitzgerald-barnett