Garland Horace Fort passed away at the age of 85 on Friday, April 26, at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson. He was born May 16, 1927, to Perry L. Fort and Lillian Coker Fort in Castro County, near Nazareth, Texas. He was the grandson of Addie Dale and George R. Fort, a circuit riding preacher and organizer of several Methodist churches.

In 1945, he worked for the U.S. Navy at North Island, San Diego, Calif., where he helped salvage aircraft parts while he went to school to complete his high school degree. Garland enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1945 and retired from active duty in 1946. Having enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve, he was called to active duty from 1950 to 1951 and served in Korea. Between military and work commitments, he helped his father on a farm.

He worked in the sheriff’s office at Canyon, Texas, while attending West Texas State University, where he graduated with a B.S. degree in 1955. He then worked with the Texas Highway Patrol until 1956, after which he was employed as an instructor at the Jet Mechanic School at Amarillo Air Force Base, and later at the Texas Employment Office and Texas Tech, assisting with veterans programs.

He worked as County Service Officer (CSO) in Midland, Texas from 1959 to 1969, and at the Veterans’ Administration (VA) office in Waco, Texas. He volunteered to go to Vietnam in 1969 for six months as a consultant, dealing with VA benefits at various bases and departure points in Vietnam. He transferred from the Veteran’s Affairs Regional Office (VARO), Waco, to VARO, Jackson in 1972, where he worked until he retired from the VA in 1986. He accepted a position in 1986 as CSO in Brookhaven, where he worked until he retired in 2007.

Garland was a member of Macedonia Baptist Church, where he served on the Budget and Finance Committee, and current member of Fair River Baptist Church. He was a member of the Brookhaven Lions Club and a hospice volunteer, and helped care for the elderly people in his church and community.

He is preceded in death by his parents, Perry L. Fort and Lillian Coker Fort; his first wife, Ida Lee Fort; his brothers, G.B. Fort, Allen Dale Fort and Carroll Fort; and his sisters, Elnita Key and Bonnie Long.

He is survived by his wife, Mildred Fugler Foster Fort; his stepdaughters, Dr. Donna Foster, of Brookhaven, and Linda Foster Price, of Houston; his sisters, Martha Meek, of Wheeler, Texas, and Doris Robinson and Marie Adams, of Morton, Texas; his niece, Amanda Rawls, of Brookhaven; a great-niece and great-nephew; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren

To know him was to love him.

Visitation will be Monday, April 29, from 5 until 9 p.m. at Riverwood Family Funeral Service, Brookhaven. Services will be 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 30, at the funeral home, with internment at Macedonia Baptist Church Cemetery, Brookhaven.

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