Beverly Jean Gilliam Tresch

Beverly Jean Gilliam Tresch died on August 12, 2024, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She was born on February 18, 1938, in Columbia, Tennessee, to Hazel and Catherine Gilliam. After graduating from high school in Columbia, she attended Belmont College, where she met John William Tresch, Jr. during her first week of college in 1956. Answering her calling to become a pastor’s wife, they married on July 3, 1957, and while John continued his studies at Belmont, Beverly worked at the Sunday School Board in Nashville, Tennessee, to help put her husband through college. Even though she did not graduate college, she always landed secretarial jobs that required a degree. She was a fast typist, good organizer, funny, and good with people. When her son, David, was born in 1959, she changed her career to become a full-time mother and, at the same time, held the challenging job of “pastor’s wife.” She learned how to pack up every four or five years and make a new home in the towns where her husband was pastor. Her second son, Kyle was born in 1964, and she continued to stay home with her sons until she went back to work during their high school years. 

She thrived in her job at Oklahoma Baptist University in the early 1980s, where John was the Dean of the School of Christian Service. Later, Beverly served as the City Clerk of Bluefield , West Virginia for more than a decade. After John died in 2003, she left West Virginia and returned to Oklahoma where her youngest son, Kyle, lived. She is remembered for her hobby of “antiquing” and decorating the many houses they lived in with style and flair. She loved to read, host gatherings in her home, decorate her house and spend time with her children and grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her husband, John, her parents, Hazel and Catherine Gilliam, and her brother, Tommy Gilliam. She is survived by her son David and his wife Lara, of Franklin, Tennessee; her son Kyle and his wife Lisa, of Tulsa, Oklahoma; and her grandchildren, Colin, Erin, Alison, Kristen, and Miriam. 

Donations can be made in Beverly’s memory to the John W. Tresch, Jr. Scholarship Fund: https://www.bluefield.edu/giving/