Joseph Rauls

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Mr. Joseph Thomas Rauls, age 70 of New Orleans, formerly of the Buckeye community near Leachville, died Thursday, February 28, 2008 in New Orleans. Born in Hornersville in 1937 to Thomas Jefferson Rauls and Sybil Lenore Bone Rauls, where his boyhood was spent helping with chores on the family farm. He grew up with a love of reading, hunting the great Mississippi flyway with his brothers and friends and playing basketball. He was a graduate of Leachville High School and Arkansas State College in Jonesboro. In New Orleans he worked with the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare before earning his law degree from Tulane University School of Law where he served on the Moot Court and was a member of the Order of the Coif. He joined the law office of Exxon in New Orleans and was later assigned to Esso Europe, London. After two years he returned to the New Orleans office for eleven years. After five years with Exxon's International Exploration Section in Houston, he retired to New Orleans in 2000. Life-long passions were his family, his daughters' athletic activities, duck hunting, reading, nature and conservation, birding, cooking marmalade and curries for friends and genealogy. A quest for knowledge led him to study at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and the University of London. He had an ongoing interest in the family cotton farm operation spearheaded by his brother, W. F. "Bud" Rauls. He was of Norman/Scotch-Irish stock descended on his mother' s side from Humphrey de Bohun, who arrived in England in 1066 with the forces of William the Conqueror. The de Bohuns continued to play a part in succeeding reigns and occupy tombs in Salisbury Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral. His father' s Scotch-Irish ancestors arrived in Nansemon County, Virginia in the 1700's, making their way across the Blue Ridge Mountains and Tennessee to the Mississippi River and into Missouri and Arkansas where the family farms today for over 100 years. Mr. Rauls enjoyed the activities of a number of men's organizations in New Orleans and Texas and held close a number of cherished friends whose lunchtime and duck hunting camaraderie he treasured.

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