Van Cleve, Olen Jackson, Jr. [Jack] (1918–1996)

“Jack” Van Cleve, Jr., United States Marine, law enforcement officer, and Texas Ranger, was born Olen Jackson Van Cleve on September 23, 1918, in Del Rio, Texas, to Jonathan “John” Van Cleve and Pearl Gertrude (Light) Van Cleve. The 1930 census recorded the Van Cleve family living in La Pryor in Zapata County, where John Van Cleve worked on a ranch and Jack attended school.

By 1940 the family lived in Uvalde, Texas, and Jack Van Cleve, Jr., had enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), where he worked as a carpenter in Company 879, which was stationed at Garner State Park. During his time in the CCC camps, he started boxing, which he continued during his military service and beyond. During World War II Van Cleve enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on February 18, 1942, and soon was transferred to the Third Recruit Battalion at the Station Sea School, Recruit Depot, Marine Corps Base, San Diego, California. Private Van Cleve was transferred to the Marine Detachment on the USS Chester, a Northampton class heavy cruiser, in October 1942. In July 1944 he was promoted to corporal and promoted to sergeant in January 1945. In April 1945 Van Cleve was transferred to the Marine Barracks at the Naval Ammunition Depot on Mare Island, California. He served in the Pacific Theater for three years and was discharged on October 10, 1945, with the rank of sergeant at Marine Barracks, Naval Magazine, Port Chicago, California.

Following the war, Jack Van Cleve married France LaVane Weathers in Frio County on November 16, 1946, and two sons, Jack III and Jimmy Ray, were born to this union. Van Cleve was a noted farmer of spinach and turnips in Zavala County, planted watermelons in Frio County, and later operated a family cattle ranching operation in La Salle County. He was appointed deputy sheriff of Zavala County on February 1, 1947, and was stationed at La Pryor; he served at this position for seven years. In 1954 he ran for county sheriff of Zavala County but was unsuccessful. Van Cleve also served as a game warden and Special Ranger for the Jack Bowman Land & Cattle Company before his career as a Texas Ranger.

On April 1, 1957, Jack Van Cleve enlisted in Company D of the Texas Rangers under Capt. Alfred Y. Allee, who commanded headquarters in Carrizo Springs. In September 1957 Van Cleve was assigned to Cotulla. Soon after joining the Texas Rangers, Van Cleve with Ranger Ed Gooding broke up a gambling racket in Houston and Galveston, after the Texas Rangers had conducted a multi-year investigation of these illegal casinos. While serving in Houston, Van Cleve received an award for his “outstanding contribution to the law enforcement of Texas” by the Texas Law Enforcement Foundation.

In 1964 Rangers Van Cleve and Levi Duncan were part of an intensive multi-agency man search after an armed home invasion near Happy Hollow in Uvalde County. In 1966 Governor John Connally ordered the Texas Rangers to the Rio Grande Valley to investigate the farmworkers’ conditions after the United Farm Workers Strike (see STARR COUNTY STRIKE). Again in 1967 Van Cleve and other Rangers were sent to Rio Grande City after some unionists were beaten during the new melon harvest. In the aftermath of those operations, six members of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee filed a civil suit against Captain Allee and other Texas Rangers, including Van Cleve, for alleged “brutality and civil rights violations by the Rangers during arrests.” The action set into motion court proceedings that culminated in the United States Supreme Court decision against the Rangers in Allee v. Medrano (1974) that upheld a similar 1972 decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

In the late 1960s Ranger Van Cleve stopped a riot during an explosive election night in his hometown of Cotulla. Just prior to retirement, at the request of Governor Dolph Briscoe, Van Cleve and Ranger Walter A. Russell met King Hussein of Jordan during his visit to the Mecom Ranch, near San Ygnacio in Zapata County, Texas. Van Cleve retired on May 31, 1977, with more than thirty years in law enforcement and twenty years in the Texas Rangers serving out of Carrizo Springs and Cotulla.

Van Cleve was a member of the First Methodist Church of Cotulla and the Former Texas Rangers Association. In 1993 the Cotulla-LaSalle County Chamber of Commerce honored Van Cleve and his wife as LaSalle County Fair and Wild Hog Cook-Off Parade Marshals. Jack Van Cleve, Jr., at age seventy-seven, died on April 13, 1996, in San Antonio, Texas, and was buried in the Cotulla West Cemetery in Cotulla, Texas.