Leta McFarlin Chapman

Class of
1967
Leta McFarlin Chapman

Leta McFarlin Chapman

“Mrs. Chapman was truly a Great Lady, with an educated heart, so shy and modest, dedicating her strength and energy and means to the welfare of mankind! Her good deeds are legion. When will there be another like her?”
Edna Bowman, 1974

Biography

Leta McFarlin Chapman was born in Texas and graduated from Holdenville High School.  Induction to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame was a family affair for Mrs. Chapman, as her parents Mr. and Mrs. R. N. McFarlin and her sister, Pauline C. Walter, also are members of the prestigious Hall.  Mrs. Chapman was a member of the Chapman-McFarlin-Barnard Institute with extensive oil, ranching and investment interests in Oklahoma and the Southwest.  Imbued with the same philanthropic spirit that led her parents to build a church near the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman and an auditorium on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Texas, Mrs. Chapman married a man who gave away $25 million during his lifetime and set up trusts in his will of an estimated $100 million, all the while shunning personal publicity.  Mrs. Chapman waived her right as the widow under the law of succession and set up the Ida M. McFarlin perpetual charitable trust in honor of Leta’s mother, with the Children’s Medical Center in Tulsa as the beneficiary.

Fun fact

Leta McFarlin Chapman and her husband, James, always looked toward the future, foreseeing the probable growth and expected needs in the fields of religion, education, and medical research. Therefore, they created a large perpetual trust fund with income to go to the University of Tulsa, the Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, Trinity University in San, Antonio, Texas, and John Brown University in Arkansas.

Oklahoma connections

Chapman moved to Indian Territory as a very small child.

Hometown

Tulsa

Profession

Civic Leader

Presenter

Born

1889

Died

1974
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