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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E772-E773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING THE MEMORY OF LLOYD TATUM
______
HON. HAROLD ROGERS
of kentucky
in the house of representatives
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to
the memory of my mentor and dear friend, the honorable Lloyd Tatum of
Henderson, Tennessee, who succumbed to cancer at the age of 93.
Given the profound honor of eulogizing Lloyd, I include in the Record
the following sentiments from my remarks in recognition of a life of
such great scope and consequence:
Lloyd inspired all of us with his example of truthfulness,
hard work, wit, adoration to family and friends, fairness,
and morality. He inspired me to choose law as a career and
became my mentor.
Lloyd's nickname was ``Happy,'' as humor was a mainstay in
his life. He truly enjoyed things funny and his hearty laugh
was infectious. His easy-going personality, though,
camouflaged a very serious and determined hard worker--from
his days as a crewman on the B-24 Liberator of Superfortress
at the end of World War II; to a stint as an FBI agent; to a
mini-career in movies; to a great career as a highly
respected and successful practicing attorney in all of West
Tennessee; to 10 years as a distinguished appellate justice
in Tennessee's Court of Criminal Appeals.
I first met Lloyd while a teenager in my hometown of
Monticello, Kentucky. He came to southern Kentucky to clear
the titles for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as they were
beginning to create Lake Cumberland,
[[Page E773]]
to be a 100-mile-long impoundment of the Cumberland River. He
worked out of a local law firm's office on the square in
Monticello where he met and fell in love with my sister,
Inadene Rogers. After a beautiful church wedding, the new
couple was off to New Haven, Connecticut and the FBI, and
later to Henderson, Tennessee and law practice.
Through frequent family visits, we shared great times
together--great dinners, picnics, reunions and water skiing
on Lake Cumberland. It wasn't long until Aaron came along and
then, shortly, Janice. What a pair--full of life. Soon, there
came Tim, then little Lloyd and Suzanne--all wonderful,
talented children of happy and loving parents. But tragedy
intervened when their daughter Janice became deathly ill, and
sometime later, Inadene lost her battle with cancer.
Lloyd immersed himself in his other love--the law. His law practice
and later service as a great justice on the Tennessee Criminal Court of
Appeals, consumed him. Slowly the old Lloyd Tatum came back, and though
grief was his constant companion, he regained that impressionable
personality we cherish today.
But, tragedy would come again as his second wife, Yvonne, succumbed
to cancer. There will never be another quite like Lloyd Tatum. The
joyful memories of our wonderful time together will inspire us all
until we meet him again on the other side. An inscription on the
monument over the grave of James Louis Petigru in Charleston, South
Carolina describes Lloyd much better than my feeble efforts:
``Future times will hardly know how great a life
This simple stone commemorates--
The tradition of his Eloquence, his
Wisdom and his Wit may fade:
But he lived for ends more durable than fame,
His Eloquence was the protection of the poor and wronged;
His Learning illuminated the principles of Law--
In the admiration of his Peers,
In the respect of his People,
In the affection of his Family,
His was the highest place;
The just need
Of his kindness and forbearance
His dignity and simplicity
His brilliant genius and his unwearied industry
Unawed by Opinion,
Unseduced by Flattery,
Undismayed by Disaster,
He confronted Life with antique Courage
And Death with Christian Hope.''
____________________