John Whittemore Stokes, Jr.
MEMPHIS - The most classic John Stokes story begins with him spotting the long broken-up Paul
Simon and Art Garfunkel in a New York restaurant.
It ends with him pulling up a chair to persuade them to get back together.
If anybody could’ve convinced them, it would’ve been John Whittemore Stokes Jr., who died March
7th at his Memphis home at the age of 86.
He was fearless, yes, and just crazy enough to invite himself to have dinner with a famous musical duo having a quiet night out. But he also loved people with a ferocity that made it nearly impossible to not get pulled into his orbit.
His friends say he had the biggest heart of anybody they’ve ever known.
When John joined Morgan Keegan as its head of sales in 1970, after 10 years at Merrill Lynch as one of its top producers, he and its five founders shared one small, cramped office. When Morgan
Keegan sold to Raymond James in 2012, John was vice chairman of a firm with 3,000 employees in 300 offices, thanks in no small part to his salesmanship and his philosophy of never selling a client a stock he wouldn’t sell his own mother.
So, of course, the salesman in John was convinced he could talk the famous musical duo into reuniting. It was one of the few times in his life that John didn’t close the sale. Nevertheless, his friends added the Simon & Garfunkel story to the dozens of other stories about John that they collect and share.
John relished in regaling friends, family members and strangers with his many adventures and escapades, often over a glass of Maker’s Mark bourbon on the rocks with a splash of water (and it better not be more than a splash). He was always the star of the story, with his wife of 64 years, Anne, as the co-star, and other family and friends as the supporting cast.
Winning the Memphis Singles and Doubles Handball Championships. Hunting elk in Colorado, not just with a shotgun, but a musket or a bow and arrow. Deciding after hiking a Colorado 14er that he was in good enough shape to run the NYC marathon with no training. Finishing that marathon with no toenails (because he wasn’t in good enough shape to run a marathon with no training). Wearing platform shoes to his son’s wedding reception because he was marrying into a tall family. Catching a midnight prowler in his house and scaring him so badly that the prowler, not John, flagged down the police. Outrunning the game warden in Arkansas. Officiating the wedding of the captain of his fishing boat, the Annie Girl. Being thrown from a horse in Argentina, and getting stitched up only after the hospital sent him off to buy cat gut and other supplies. (Weeks later, a US doctor was still pulling gravel out of his face with tweezers.) Trying so hard to scare his grandchildren on Halloween that he tore their front door right off its hinges. Winning a dance contest with his daughter. Jumping down into the splits while dancing and tearing his hamstring. Being so mad about it that he split in the other direction and tore that hamstring too.
To his family and friends, the Most Interesting Man in the World wasn’t the guy in the Dos Equis Commercials. It was John.
With his wife Anne, John had three children, 12 grandchildren, and 15 great grandchildren for whom he thanked God daily and at great length (and at even greater length during a pre-meal blessing as a hot meal was getting cold).
He had another family, too. He collected friends from all walks of life. Not just businessmen and bankers. Preachers. General contractors. School principals. Fishing captains. Furniture craftsmen. Farmers. Interior decorators. Geneticists. Professional baseball players. College basketball coaches. Nudists. (He wasn’t one, in case you are wondering). Name a city, and John could probably launch into a story about an adventure there with friends, and they could all launch into stories about John, too.
John inspired fierce loyalty from Morgan Keegan employees. Many credit John for taking a chance on them early in their careers and mentoring them. John’s assistant, Juneann Hughes, spent 37 years helping him coordinate appointments and correspondence with his vast network of friends and clients.
His friends numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands. He invited more than 1,000 people to his daughter’s wedding reception. Almost all showed up. And those were just his closest friends.
When a New Yorker visiting Memphis had car trouble, she Googled the closest auto repair shop. When the mechanic asked what had brought her to town, she told him she was visiting her daughter who had married into a Memphis family by the name of Stokes. The mechanic not only knew John personally, but said John had given him his first job by personally setting up interviews with every department head at Morgan Keegan. A visiting New York college administrator and a randomly Googled Memphis auto mechanic, linked together by John.
When the CEO of a company in which John invested was in a bank meeting, talk again turned to John. “My Dad knows him. I don’t,” the banker said. “But we spent our honeymoon in his house in Colorado.”
Six degrees of separation didn’t apply to John. It was more like two or three. In his stories, John never met a superlative he didn’t like. His highest praise was always reserved for his wife Anne — his “soulmate” and “a saint.” The biggest, the best, the smartest, the toughest, the next Apple or Google. They were all parts of the stories. John didn’t shy away from embellishing, especially when it came to family and other co-stars of his real-life adventures. He loved to boast that one of his grandsons could bench press 300 pounds in the sixth grade. Realizing it was futile to convince John it was actually 200 pounds in the eighth grade, his grandson finally caved and told him, “Really it was 400 pounds.”
“That’s what I thought,” John said. “That sounds better anyway.”
When his grandchildren began playing school sports in middle school, John told them and anybody else who would listen that they were good enough to win state championships; play SEC football; make it to the NCAA basketball tournament; heck, to try out for the NFL. He wasn’t just selling; he believed it with all his heart. And, sure enough, they went on to do just that. John was there to loudly cheer them on.
John was born in Mayfield, KY, graduating in 1959 from Vanderbilt, where he met Anne; soon thereafter, they married, which he frequently reminded everybody was “the best decision he ever made.” (His friends all agree.) They settled in Memphis because of its easy access to good duck hunting. He quickly adopted his new hometown as his own.
Memphis became one of his favorite things to sell. His stamp and name are all over the city. Not just Morgan Keegan Tower and the riverfront, but the University of Memphis Law School; Stokes Stadium at MUS; Stokes Field House at St. George’s; a downtown street sign, for a time; and the riverbank playground catfish named Big John. He served on the boards of the University of Memphis Board of Visitors, the Church Health Center, the Shelby County Drug Court, the Airport, the Zoo, numerous downtown organizations, several public companies, and literally dozens more. He didn’t just support Memphis with his time and money, but with his loud and enthusiastic cheering on the floor at Tigers basketball games. Loud enough that many refs knew him by name.
John is survived by his wife Anne; his son Jack Stokes (Carol) and his three children - Cameron, John, and Will - and nine grandchildren; his daughter Mim Stokes Brown (Buck) and her four children - Adeline, Cabell, Dean and Miriam - and one grandchild; and his daughter Elizabeth Stokes Bran (Mark) and her five children - Jessica, Kristina, Alex, Annie, and Matthew - and five grandchildren. He is preceded in death by his parents John and Anita Stokes and his sister Anne.
Friends can celebrate John’s life on what would have been his 87th birthday with visitation with his family from 2 PM to 3 PM on Thursday, March 21st, at Idlewild Presbyterian Church at 1750 Union Ave. in Memphis. Funeral services, coordinated by Canale Funeral Directors, will follow at 3 PM at Idlewild.
Memorial donations in John’s name can be made to his favorite charity, the Church Health Center (churchhealth.org), or his church, Idlewild Presbyterian; or your favorite charity or church; or your favorite bar, where John’s family hopes you’ll toast him (preferably with Maker’s Mark) and share your favorite John Stokes stories. Embellishments are encouraged.
His family and friends and this city will miss the hell out of him. And that’s no embellishment.