Lamar Fleming, Jr.

FLEMING, LAMAR, JR. (1892–1964). Lamar Fleming, Jr., merchant and civic leader, was born in Augusta, Georgia, on August 13, 1892, the son of L. L. Fleming, a prominent cotton merchant of that city and later of New York City. He was educated in the public schools and attended Harvard University until his junior year in 1911, when, for family financial reasons, he left school to join Anderson, Clayton and Company in Oklahoma City.

He became the firm's representative in Holland and Germany in 1914, and from 1915 to 1922 he directed its operations in Italy under the name Lamar Fleming and Company. In recognition of his continuing interest in Italy, the Italian government awarded him the Italian Solidarity Star in 1962, the highest honor it can bestow upon the citizen of another country. From 1922 to 1924 Fleming lived in Liverpool, England, where his firm acted in partnership with D. F. Pennefather and Company.

Fleming became a resident of Texas in 1924. He retired from Anderson, Clayton and Company in 1960, having served as president from 1939 to 1953 and chairman of the board from 1953 to 1960. He helped his firm evolve from a copartnership trading only in American-grown cotton into a publicly owned corporation that dealt also in foreign cotton and coffee, grain, and vegetable oils. During the last decade of his business career, Fleming directed the firm into the food-products field.

He served on the governing boards of the University of Houston and Rice University, as well as the Kinkaid School in Houston. He was a board member of Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor University Medical Foundation. He was vice chairman of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Commission on Foreign Economic Policy and was an adviser to the ninth session of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade conference in Geneva.

He served on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Although never a candidate for public office, he exercised a strong influence in local and state politics.

On February 7, 1920, Fleming married Clare Evelyn Knowles of England. They became the parents of four children. Fleming died in Houston on July 5, 1964.