Cliff Beall

February 9, 1942 - November 8, 2020

Cliff Beall lived to 78 full years. He was husband, father, grandpa, and great grandpa. Clifford Herbert Beall was born February 19, 1942 in Alfalfa, Oklahoma to Lloyd and Alta Beall and passed on November 8, 2020. He grew up on the farm with his parents, his older brother Elmo and three sisters June, Esther, and Juanita. He was saved and baptized when he was 13 years old, loved baseball and had what he considered an average youth. After what he would call average grades in school, he graduated from high school in 1960. With the help of his brother’s guidance and agreement from his parents, he spent a year in drafting school in Oklahoma City. After returning home, he decided jobs were scarce and decided to join the military. With his brother’s guidance, he decided to go in the Navy on November 9, 1961. After four years of service, he was preparing to leave the military, but destiny intervened. His service was extended four months due to the Vietnam buildup and was stationed in San Francisco. He then had a chance to go to a Halloween party with his cousin Rosemary, who happened to be best friends with a young lady name Leila Kennedy, who immediately caught his attention. He was restationed to San Diego shortly thereafter and he continued to travel 600 miles to San Francisco to date his future wife. Cliff and Leila were married on June 21, 1966 and moved to Los Angeles. Cliff started work with Baker Oil Tool a few months earlier to help support his future family. Family and work would define the rest of his life. Cliff’s beloved wife Leila was the love of his life. After having Roger in 1967, he had an opportunity to relocate to Houston, Texas in 1968 so that he could be closer to his parents, brother and sisters who still lived in Oklahoma. His son Brad was born in 1970. Having two boys, they wanted a daughter and decided to adopt their daughter Ann in 1978. He loved his children dearly and he worked hard to support them. In 1979, Cliff had an opportunity to move closer to his parents and siblings again and settled in Broken Arrow. He loved his parents, his brother and sisters and loved being around them and their kids. Family was extremely important to him. He enjoyed watching his kids play sports and other school activities. After the kids graduated and started their own lives, he and Leila had the opportunity to help raise their granddaughter Ayla. Over the years, Cliff and Leila watched their kids grow up and have their own kids. He loved taking pictures of his entire family and could always be seen with a camera during family gatherings. He would spend hours pouring over pictures on his computer and hanging them on the walls. His hobbies later in life besides family was genealogy (and their family history), OSU football and Cleveland Browns football blogs. Leila was his soul mate and the love of his life. He was a loving and devoted husband that all could see. In his words, other than his wife, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the most defining moment in his life was when after four or five months on the job at Baker, his boss, Fred de Roachemont called him into his office and said, “Cliff you owe it to yourself and your family to go back to school and get some trig.” He did not know why he mentioned trig in particular, but the meaning was clear, he needed to go back to school. Night classes were available at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California and he attended night classes for much of the next 10 years, first at Cerritos College and later at the University of Houston. He never got a degree, but in his opinion, he got an education. A second defining moment was when Jeff Lembcke, a young engineer at Baker, programmed the von Mises Tri-axial stresses on the Engineering PC using GW Basic in the early eighties. It amazed him. Using this program, one could input a pipe OD, a pipe ID, the material yield and internal or external working pressures and then after pressing the “enter” button, reams of paper would spill out of the printer with every conceivable stress defined. He said to himself, “So this is what programming is. This is what I want to do.” So, he went back to school to learn to be a programmer. After taking courses in Turbo Pascal and Assembler in school, he learned “C” from a book. He wrote a number of windows-based programs for Baker and after retirement, he was able to do some additional programming assignments for Baker. He loved his work and his work family and relayed a large number of stories over the years of people he worked with. He was proud of his success at work and was fortunate to get 21 American patents for original designs, several of which were commercially significant. Cliff retired in 2006 after 43 years with Baker. He always had fond memories of work. In his words, “In my life, I have been all over the world. In the Navy, I sailed to Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, and as a Baker engineer, I flew to Aberdeen, Scotland, Singapore Island, and Bangkok, Thailand. I have been as far north as the North Slope in Alaska (twice) and as far south as Rio de Janeiro (twice). I have seen the northern lights and the Southern Cross. After retiring from Baker, I visited Israel with you [Brad] as a tourist. While in Tel Aviv, I went swimming on the beach behind the hotel. Thus, I have swum in the Mediterranean Sea as well as both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Among the beaches, I have walked on the Waikiki in Hawaii and the Copacabana in Rio. I have lived a rich and wonderful life. I have no regrets.” Cliff is survived by his wife Leila; his three children Roger and his wife Ruth, Ann and her husband Brian, and Brad and his wife Ronnett; grandchildren Ayla, Bobby, Leila, Jacob, Ella, Kate, Gracelyn, Ashley, Breanna, and Eriel; great grandchildren Koda, Elijah, Kason; a sister, Esther Page of Weatherford; and numerous nieces and nephews. He is proceeded in death by his parents, brother Elmo Beall, three sisters June Miller, Juanita Swanda and infant sister, Sandra Sue Beall. In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to: Shriners Hospitals for Children at 2900 Rock Point Drive, Tampa, FL 33607 or at www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org