Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 19, No. 1
March, 1941
NECROLOGY

Page 106

JOEL MASON SANDLIN
1878-1940

Joel Mason Sandlin, son of Samuel Winfred and Margaret M. (Crow) Sandlin, was born September 6, 1878, on a farm near Hartselle, Morgan County, Alabama. Having received a good education in the common and private schools, he taught school for four years and came to Lincoln County, Oklahoma Territory, in the early part of 1901, where he worked on a farm and taught school, and clerked in a store and bank. Having pursued the study of law he was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma Territory at Guthrie on January 6, 1904, and immediately entered upon the practice of the law at Prague.

On September 18, 1906 he was nominated on the Democratic ticket for delegate to the Constitutional Convention from District 22, which embraced a part of Lincoln County, and elected at the election held on November 6, 1906 under provision of the Enabling Act of June 16, 1906, and after the organization of the convention which convened on November 20, 1906, he served on the following committees: (1) Judicial Apportionment (chairman); (2) Rules1 and Procedure; (3) Municipal Corporations; (4) Public Institutions; (5) Impeachment and removal from Office; (6) Special Committee as to Legislative Apportionment.2

After the erection of the state government on November 16, 1907, he then became private secretary to the late Governor Chas. N. Haskell, serving in that capacity until appointed in the spring of 1909 by Governor Haskell as Judge of the Superior Court of Logan County, and discharged the duties of said office with honor and credit until the expiration of the term in January, 1911. He then removed to Duncan, Oklahoma and there engaged in the practice of the law. In 1915 he was appointed by the then Governor as a member of the State Board of Education and continued in such capacity by reappointments until the spring of 1929. On November 27, 1902 he was married to Miss Loula Smith of Hartselle, Alabama, who survives him. To them came the following children: Grace, who died in infancy; Fay, surviving, the wife of Joe B. House, of Mannford, Oklahoma, and Joseph, who died on August 14, 1932, and Josephine, who resides with her mother at Duncan, Oklahoma.

Judge Sandlin died on April 7, 1940, and was buried at Duncan.

As a devoted and faithful husband and father and son, his memory will be treasured. Loyal to friends, clients and pupils, ethical and able as a lawyer, and faithful as a public servant, he was the embodiment of fine citizenship.

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