Obituary of Melvin Yocum

Melvin YocumA memorial service will be at 3 p.m. Friday, Jan. 1, at Farmington Square Senior Care Community in Eugene for Melvin C. Yocum of Eugene, who died Dec. 25 of age-related causes. He was 87.He was born May 29, 1922, in Fort Wayne, Ind., to Vernon and Mabel Gieseking Yokum. He married Elisabeth Anne Miller on Dec. 29, 1941, in Evanston, Ill. She died in April 1959. He married Carolyn Gubbins in 1961 in Wilmette, Ill. She died in 1968. He married Sally Willard in May 1976 in Woodside, Calif.He served as a corporal in the Army during World War II, and was an artillery spotter in the European Theater. He attended Northwestern University until World War II.He was a vice president at Security Pacific National Bank in San Francisco, where he helped to start Opportunity Through Ownership, a business funding program for minorities. He owned and operated women’s clothing stores in California, and in the early 1980s served as mayor of Woodside, Calif.Survivors include his wife; two daughters, Anne Tearse of Eugene and Karen Nickels of Delaware Water Gap, Pa.; a son, Cyrus Yocum of La Honda, Calif.; and five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.Arrangements by Musgrove Family Mortuary in Eugene. Remembrances to the Alzheimer’s Association