The Rest of Paul Harvey's Story

Radio personality Paul Harvey was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His birth name was AURANDT. You can see why he might have assumed an easier name for his vast audience.

While searching Tulsa newspapers for a December 1921 death notice of my paternal great-grandmother, I found another death which made front page news. Harry Harrison Aurandt. Paul Harvey's dad had been murdered in early December 1921. His funeral was attended by hundreds. Aurandt, a former police administrator, left behind a young wife, a daughter and three year old son Paul (Harvey) Aurandt. The photos of the Klansmen at the cemetery? Aurandt's funeral was held seven months after one of the worst race riots in our nation's history. Was the Klan's presence that day a show of strength? Unity? The family denies Aurandt's involvement in the Klan.

See the rest of the story from The Morning Tulsa Daily World newspaper of Dec. 22, 1921 - Please click the pages within this gallery:

Author Paul Batura's biography on The Paul Harvey Story (with foreword by Mike Huckabee, yes, the very same!) has this on Aurandt's death. His book is freely available on Google books, from which I snatched these snippets:

I find it curious that this book mentions famed evangelist Gypsy Smith as the man Mrs. Aurandt hoped her husband would accompany her to see that fateful Sunday evening. Several of the Tulsa newspapers preceding that last weekend for Harry Aurandt show articles--all of them front page, of another evangelist, Billy Sunday. No mention of a Gypsy Smith. Rev. Sunday was even more popular than our own late 20th century Billy Graham. Nearly 10,000 "sinners" accepted Christ during his six week crusade in Tulsa. Amazing. December 18th was to have been his last night of the crusade.

I wonder if any of my Wiser, Ackley, Price, Lee, Baker, or Childers family attended Billy Sunday's crusade or Mr. Aurandt's funeral? Hopefully without hoods, if so.

As a kid I heard a lot about Billy Sunday at church and at school. Though I can't think when I've last read about him. Is Sunday no longer recognized in popular culture? He was once the rock star of evangelists.

Here's another page from The Morning Tulsa World from December 1921 with headlines in the left column about Rev. Sunday's farewell service.

Source:

-- "The Morning Tulsa daily world., December 22, 1921, FINAL EDITION" Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers. 23 Dec 2013 http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042345/1921-12-22/ed-1/

-- The Tulsa World Newspaper, Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 25 Sept 2007 published this on Harry Aurandt's murder, with far more details:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/only-in-oklahoma-paul-harvey-s-father-shot-by-bandits/article_cfb58278-8402-551c-ae7d-3775080364c9.html

-- Wikipedia has an interesting piece on Rodney Gypsy Smith. He apparently was born in a Gypsy tent outside of London:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_%22Gipsy%22_Smith

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Having spent a good part of 90 minutes trying to get these photos into "galleries," I admit failure and have instead bored my reader by stacking them on top of each other. Bear with this newbie BLAH-ger.

— History Sleuth

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