The Oklahoma Bar Journal September 2024

and estates and personal injury cases. She was also a justice of the peace, the local coroner and a municipal court traffic judge for Nichols Hills. 5 After her friend and former law school classmate, Curtis P. Harris, offered her a job in the district attorney’s office, Ms. Beckham became Oklahoma City’s first female assistant dis trict attorney in 1966. 6 Besides her busy legal career, Ms. Beckham was also active in the Women Lawyers Club, which became the Oklahoma Association of Women Lawyers, serving as par liamentarian of the organization in 1940. 7 Ms. Beckham was active in promoting and encouraging women in the practice of law. She was also involved in her daughter

Joan’s years at Casady School, where she served as president of the Parent’s Club. 8 Bernice Dona Berry Beckham died in August 1970. 9

ENDNOTES

Individual Sources: Judge Paul M. Vassar Joan Beckham Whitmore 1. Joan Beckham Whitmore, daughter of Bernice Beckham, conversation with and biographical sketch furnished to author, July 31, 2002. 2. Id. 3. Enid Cemetery Ass’n v. Grace, 1936 OK 457, 59 P.2d 284. 4. Whitmore, conversation with and biographical sketch to author.

5. Id. 6. Id. 7. The Citator , “Women Lawyers Club,”

Jan. 22, 1940.

8. Whitmore, conversation with and

biographical sketch to author. 9. Id.

Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.

SEPTEMBER 2024 | 45

THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL