John Wayne Watched A Bank Manager Deny A Widow Access To Her Own Account, 1955 — Then He Sat Down

#OldHollywood #VintageHollywood #ClassicHollywood August 1955. Stillwater, Oklahoma. First National Bank of Payne County. A woman named Helen Morrison stands at the bank manager's desk with a savings passbook in her hand. Her husband Frank died six months ago. He was a county surveyor. Every December for twelve years he sat down at the kitchen table and told Helen exactly how much was in the account and how much more Ruth would need and how many years they had left. He wrote College Fund on every deposit slip in the same careful hand. $12 a month for twelve years. The account holds $1,847. Ruth has been accepted to Oklahoma State University. First semester tuition is due in two weeks. Helen has the passbook. She has the death certificate. She has the acceptance letter. The bank manager's name is Raymond Fitch. He explains that under Oklahoma law, a deceased man's savings account requires a probate court order before funds can be released. The probate process takes sixty days minimum and requires a lawyer. The lawyer Helen consulted wants $150 to begin. She has $23. She asks if there is anything Fitch can do. He gives her a pamphlet. In the leather lobby chair, a man in a tan Stetson has been sitting for twenty minutes waiting for someone who is late. He has not turned a page of his newspaper in ten minutes. He folds it. He crosses the marble floor. He sits down in the chair across from Fitch's desk. He asks to see the passbook. He reads it page by page. Then he looks at Fitch and says one thing. Fitch picks up the telephone. He is on the call for eleven minutes. When he puts it down he fills out a release form. He signs it. He stamps it. He slides it across the desk. Helen withdrew $385 that morning. She deposited $165 at the OSU bursar's office the following Monday, first person in line when they opened. Ruth moved into the dormitory in September. Helen carried one of the boxes up the stairs. Frank had been right about the number of years. He had been right about the amount. When Helen died in 1978, Ruth found two things in the kitchen drawer. The last deposit slip Frank ever filled out. December 1954. $12. College Fund. And the bank release form from August 1955. Blue stamp. Fitch's signature. Fall semester 1955. Ruth had them framed side by side. They are on the wall of her house on Washington Street. Two blocks from the bank. This video is an original dramatic storytelling production. Historical events and dialogue are reconstructed for narrative purposes. #JohnWayne #TheDuke #ClassicHollywood #OldHollywood #VintageHollywood #AmericanLegend #GoldenAgeOfHollywood #JohnWayneStories #Oklahoma #CollegeFund #AmericanKindness #WomensRights1950s #FamilyLegacy