Sam Olden, Jr., died at home August 12, 2022, at the age of 103. He was born on a cotton plantation four miles up in the Delta from Yazoo City on March 27, 1919, the son of Samuel B. Olden and Catherine Clark Olden, both natives of Yazoo City, whose families had been in Yazoo County since the 1830s and early 1840s.
He was educated in the Yazoo City public schools, and graduated from Ole Miss in 1939 with a B.A., and in 1941 with an M.A. in Southern History and Literature. While a graduate student he taught classes in American History to freshmen in the Business School, and as a result was considering a further degree and a teaching career. However, in early 1941 he was given an appointment by the Department of State into the American Foreign Service, and in August was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Quito, Ecuador, where he served as a Vice-Consul for almost two years. With World War II underway, he resigned from the post in 1943 and applied for, and received, a commission as Ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve.
After initial assignments in Key West and Boston he was sent to the European Theatre, serving with the Navy unit operating the port of Le Havre, France, the principal entry point for U.S. troops arriving in Europe after D-Day. With the end of war in Europe, he was immediately put back into a U.S. Embassy, this time in Paris, in the office of the U.S. Naval Attaché. He lived in Paris almost a year before being transferred to Pearl Harbor; then to Shanghai, China, for a short while before being discharged.
Returning to Mississippi in 1946 for only three months, he was surprised to be asked to interview in Washington for a post with the Central Intelligence Group, soon to become the C.I.A., a type of organization utterly new to the United States. He subsequently worked with it in Washington for its first three formative years; then in Vienna, Austria – still a divided city like Berlin, and behind the Iron Curtain – for two years. However, ten years of government was enough. And in 1952, joining the Mobil Oil Corporation’s Overseas Division in New York, he left for Nigeria in West Africa as a marketing executive-in-training. Five years in West Africa had him as Mobil’s area representative in Western Nigeria; Eastern Nigeria and the British Cameroons; French Cameroun; French Equatorial Africa based in Brazzaville, French Congo, and in Bangui, Oubangui-Chari; Chad and Gabon.
In 1957 he was returned first to Mobil’s Public Relations Department, then to its Government Relations Department, for four years in New York. In 1961, he was first named General Manager of a Mobil Affiliate, in Tunis, Tunisia. However, with the turmoil in Algeria next door, and the sudden departure of the French in 1963, he was hastily sent to Algiers as the first American ever to serve the company there as General Manager. In 1966-69 he was General Manager of two Mobil affiliates in Peru, living in Lima; in 1969-74, General Manager in Spain with office and home in Madrid.
During all this time he was given most of these assignments in part because of a reasonable command of German, French and Spanish. He took early retirement in 1974 and made a year-long journey around the world; then moved back into his old home in Yazoo City among his oldest friends, scores of whom were still there. He became a cattle farmer, buying a beautiful 300 acres of woods and pastureland in the hilly part of Yazoo County, and enjoyed that for the next 15 years. With someone to stand in for him during the summer grazing season, he continued for many years to go back abroad once or twice each year. He studied for three summers at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England; lived in Rome and Florence, Italy, for several months learning Italian; took a refresher course in German at Nuremberg; crossed Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway; studied Buddhist Monasteries in Tibet; crossed Mongolia and all of Central Asia; visited Armenia and Georgia in the Caucasus; Cambodia, Laos and Viet-Nam in Indochina; Bhutan and Sikkim in the Himalaya; the Baltic States; the entire Norwegian Coast to name a few places. He returned fairly regularly to Vienna, Paris, and Madrid – old hometowns he knew so well.
In Mississippi he served 15 years on the State Committee for the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss. He was a worker-bee in the Mississippi Historical Society, having been on the Board and serving as State President in 1996-97; and served on the Board of the Foundation for the Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven. The Mississippi Historical Society honored him in 2001 with its Award of Merit and in 2018 with a Resolution of Commendation for dedicated and outstanding public service.
In Yazoo City he served as President of the Yazoo Historical Society and enjoyed working with the Yazoo County Visitors Bureau and Convention Center. He was particularly associated with saving the Triangle Cultural Center. He was honored for that service in 2000 by the Yazoo County Chamber of Commerce and Bell South with the “Spirit of Yazoo” award for volunteerism and service to the community; and by The Yazoo Herald, naming him “Citizen of the Year.” In 2007 the museum was renamed in his honor. In 2009, he received the DAR Medal of Honor. He helped establish the Henry Herschel Brickell Memorial Yazoo Literary Walkway, dedicated in 2010. His contributions were recognized in the Congressional Record in 2014 and 2019, for his 95th and his 100th birthdays.
He was preceded in death by his parents; and by his sister, Catherine “Sis” Olden Wohner, and her husband, Collins. He is survived by his niece, Catherine Clark Wohner; nephew Collins Wohner, Jr., his wife Margee and their daughters, Medley and Catherine; devoted friend John Langston; cousin Judy Edwards and many other beloved Clark family cousins; and a host of friends. The family is deeply grateful to his devoted team of caregivers, especially Jackie Cork and Johnny Burse, for the loving care provided in his last years; and to the Adoration Hospice team for their dedicated and compassionate ministry.
Funeral arrangements are: Monday, August 22, visitation from 10-11 a.m. in the chapel, with the funeral beginning at 11 a.m. in the sanctuary, First Presbyterian Church, Yazoo City. A graveside service will immediately follow at Glenwood Cemetery in Yazoo City.
Memorials may be made to the First Presbyterian Church, Yazoo City, or a charity of your choice.
