Palestine High School Alumni Association

05 / 21 / 1915  –  02 / 03 / 1996

Services for John William “Floyd” McFarlane, will be at 1 p.m. Monday at First United Methodist Church with Dr. William Newcomb and Dr. Morris House officiating.  Burial will follow in New Addition Cemetery under the direction of Bailey & Foster Funeral Home.

Mr. McFarlane died Saturday in a Houston hospital.  He was born in Palestine on May 21, 1915, to John Wesley and Mae Morrow McFarlane.  Mr. McFarlane was reared on a cotton and dairy farm on land that is now within Palestine city limits.  As a lieutenant during World War II, he served as a B-29 flight instructor.

He was a lifelong farmer and rancher and began an oil and gas partnership with Gordon B. Broyles in the early 1960’s establishing an exploration company in Houston together with his son.  He served as Chairman of McFarlane Oil Company until 1982.  That year McFarlane Oil merged with Global Natural Resources, a company on the New York Stock Exchange, of which McFarlane served as chairman of the board.

Mr. McFarlane also was active in banking and was a founding shareholder of Houston National Bank and a principal shareholder of First National Bank of Palestine prior to it’s purchase by First Commercial Corporation of Little Rock.

During the 1960’s, he also was instrumental in assembling acreage which was purchased by the state for the Coffield prison unit near Tennessee Colony.  He was preceded in death by his wife, Fay Watson McFarlane on June 5, 1989.

He is survived by sons, John Edward McFarlane of Houston and Dr. Robert Finley McFarlane of Palestine; sisters, Francis Lowe of Richardson and Helen Stout of Palestine; brothers, Alvis F. McFarlane of Del Rio and E. Byron McFarlane of Crockett; and five grandchildren.

Pallbearers will be Bill Knowles, Jess Hickman, Cliff Johnson, John B. Carter, Jr.,  J. Charles Hollimon, J. H. Dickson and Dr. Carl Rountree.

Honorary pallbearers will be Michael McFarlane, Domingo Mireles and all the directors of the First National Bank of palestine and of the Houston National Bank.

The family requests contribution in McFarlane’s memory be made to the Hospice of East Texas, 3800 Paluxy, Suite 500, Tyler, Texas 75703 or Hospice at Texas Medical Center, 1905 Holcombe Blvd., Houston, Texas 77030

Source:  Palestine Herald Press