Oscar Turner was born at Woodlands, his father's farm near Woodville, Kentucky, on October 19, 1867.

[2] Edward Turner, who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, was his grand-uncle.

[1] Turner was hospitalized at St. Paul Sanitarium in Dallas, but refused heart surgery and asked to be taken home.

[1] Turner died at "Melrose", his home in the Crescent Hill section of Louisville, on July 17, 1902.

[1] In 1909, Turner's widow married William Norman Cottrell (1870–1916), a Chicago attorney and judge.