<Willy Wylds Home Page>

This is an opportunity I never had before and that is to tell the whole world of my undying love for my wife Lolly. She is the most caring and unselfish person that I have ever known.

We met during the Gulf War and it was quite accidental! After observing her from a distance on several occassions I finally had the nerve to approach her and start a conversation. I told her a friend of mine had invited me to his ranch in Mexico for a big Bar B Q they had planned for the coming Saturday and asked if she would like to accompany me. Her reply was yes and said I should give her a call and let her know what time to be ready. I said fine and walked away. A little later she came over to where I was talking to someone and asked if I didn't need her phone number in order to call her. We have been together ever since!

OUR FAMILY

In our family we have nine children, one deceased and eleven grand children. We are a happy family with no serious problems. All are happily married with the exception of the oldest son who is single. We have two daughters Jessica and Alice that live in Waxahachie, Texas with their families. Sonia and her family live in Pharr, Texas. Cynthia and her family live in Katy, Texas. Michael Troy Wylds and his family are in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Denise and her family are in California. Our youngest son Javi married in July 1998 and they will be making their home in Dallas in November. The oldest son William Wesley JR. lives in Houston. We lost our son Peter Blane Wylds in June of 1998 and he was thirty nine years old. A very sad day in our lives.

1999 a very tough year in our lives. It seems the years ending in 9 have always been bad years for yours truly. My wife Lolly was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 1999 and we have just finished treatments that began in February. She had her last radiation this last week, November the 3rd, 1999. We made fourteen trips to Houston for her chemo treatments begining in February and ending on August 24. I would reccommend M. D. Anderson cancer clinic in Houston as one of the greatest places for cancer treatment. While going to Houston we had the opportunity to spend some time with the eldest son Wesley. We lost Wesley on May 31, 1999 as he passed in his sleep of natural causes. He was 47 years young. Wes and his sister Cynthia lost their Mom in March of 99 from diabetes. Very sad days in our lives!

September 8, 2000 I had expierienced a problem that we felt was poor circulation and had been to several doctors to try and find a solution for it. After several months and doctors which also included a trip to Houston for a second opinion, it was determined that I would need open heart surgery. It didn't look too good and at first I refused to have the surgery but after seeing how concerned my wife and children were I decided to go through with it. We chose McAllen Heart Hospital here in the Valley where we live. An excelent hospital. On the eighth of December it will have been three months since surgery and I have recovered very nicely. I needed five bypasses and Cardiod surgery on the big vein in my neck as it was 95 percent blocked. While my lifespan has improved there is not a complete solution to the circulation problems in my legs. My wife along with my Lord and all our children were by my side through the whole procedure and I had friends from all over the country and the world that were saying prayers for me and that was the big factor in my recovery. I can never thank them enough!

Update: December2000, Another sonogram has shown that I have a double aneurysm on my aorta and that I will again have to have further surgery. I was told this was more risk than the bypasses. My wife and I have continued our prayers as always. In February we were advised by my cardiologist to make an appointment with the surgeon as I needed to get this done and the sooner the better. Upon our visit with the surgeon he had me take another cat scan. On our return to him for the results I was advised that I now only had one small aneurysm and that I would not need surgery! Thank you Lord. From a fortune cookie I had gotten on March 8, 2001. ( You call for faith, I show you doubt to prove that faith exist.)

COMPUTERS

In April, 1994 a friend gave me my first computer a Packard Bell 386 that had a 25 mghz processor and a 125 megabyte hard drive with 2 megabytes of ram. All I had to do was buy a monitor to go with it and I was now in the computer business. I am now on my fourth computer, this last being a Cybermax Pentium II 333 mghz and 6.4 gigabyte hard drive with 64 meg ram. I remember my friend that helped me build the second computer that was a 66 mghz with 425 megabyte hard drive and 16 meg ram telling me that I would never need anything bigger than that. Today my computer is home built and is a Celeron running at 450 MHZ with 128 megabyte of ram with a 10.2 gigabyte hard drive. A lot of changes in five years. Another new change in computers! In May of 2001 I have just built myself a new puter with a 1 Gigahertz AMD chip, 256 magabytes of RAM and a thirty gigabyte hard drive. WOW

WOODCRAFT

Our venture into woodcraft and birding began about the same time. While we had been avid hummer fans and had humming bird feeders up for many years we had not had the time or interest in other birds until a friend told us of the plight of the Purple Martins needing housing. It was then I went to the Internet to find what I needed to know and found it all. To learn about Purple Martins begin here! Chuck Abares Purple Martin Page

I purchased a set of plans from Chuck for building the gourd racks and am ever so glad I did as they are my pride and joy. They were my first project in wood working and it led my wife to buy me a complete wood working shop. We put our gourd rack up in February 1998 for the first time and between them and the Camelot Castle's I had built, we had thirty new homes for the Martins and I am proud to say we had twenty six colonies with us all summer. A sight to see! They are gone for now but we can hardly wait for them to return.

This year 1998, we became full fledged bird watchers and never realized the beautiful birds that abound here in the valley and only the valley. We have all sorts of species that migrate here from the north and south. I build bird houses for many different types of birds including Purple Martins and sell quite a few by word of mouth. I will build close to two hundred bird houses to begin selling in November this year.

AMATEUR RADIO

It all began in when I was very young. I had saved my pennies to get a crystal radio. It was a peculiar radio in that it was a peice of shiny rock with little flakes of mica in a little holder and you tuned it by placing what they called a cat whisker on different places of the rock and listened through a single headphone. For reception you hung a wire out the window as an antenna. You really had to strain to hear but it really worked. I kept that interest for many years until I was introduced to amateur radio by a friend. I started to study and practice learning the morse code in 1952 and passed the test in 1953 for a Novice license. The novice license was good for one year and was meant to give you the oportunity to study and get your morse code speed up to be able to test for the General Class license which would give you most all amateur priveleges on all amateur frequencies. I passed the General Test in early 1954.In just a few short years I had qualified for WAS award for having worked all fifty of the United states. DXCC award which was an award for having worked or contacted by radio over one hundred countries. Once an Amateur always an Amateur.

OUR PETS

My wife and I have two person doggies. The oldest being Heidi at fourteen years and Suci at three and a half years. Heidi is a shelty mix and was pulled from an irrigation canal at the age of about ten weeks. Suci adopted us when she was about eight weeks old and had been dumped near our home. Suci is a Catahoula the state dog of Louisiana. Our home has a nine foot wall around a patio that is about a half an acre and the babies spend much of their time there as watch dogs. Of course Heidi at her age spends most of her time sleeping these days in the air conditioning.

More sad news! We had to put little Heidi to sleep on June 1, 2001. The poor baby had lost her hearing and arthritis was awful painful for her in her rear legs. She was sixteen years and six months old, equivalent to being one hundred and twelve years of human life.. She was loyal to the end. She has joined Shawn, and Sheena in dogie heaven.

As my days dwindle down I felt that I must return to where it all began for me. While I often had thought of returning to trace my foot steps again, there had been difficulties in getting it to materialize. Last year we planned for the trip only to post pone it once again. More determined than ever and with my wife Lolly's persitence we finally set the date to begin our journey. We would leave on April 24th 2003 and return on May 11, 2003. I was a little apprenhensive in that I could make the journey with my health as it is and due to the fact the most I had been away from home in the last few years was for three days. The following is copied from my wife's journal which I am using in it's entirety as she did such a fantastic job in compiling it.

We left home Thursday morning April 24, 2003 and arrived in Katy Texas, staying with our daughter Cynthia and her family. We stayed there thru Friday 25 then left on the morning of Saturday the 26th arriving in Mobile, Alabama at four in the afternoon. We had dinner at a Chinese buffet restaurant and this was the only poor meal we had on our trip. We drove through the beautiful state of Alabama Sunday 27th, 2003 stopping for breakfast in Auburn, Alabama at a Waffle house and had a fabulous breakfast. We arrived in Augusta, Georgia at four in the afternoon staying at the La Quinta motel. This is where my honey got us a reduced rate of 39. dollars per night as opposed to the 64. dollar confirmed reservations he had made at our home on his computer. We had seen a billboard advertising rates as low as 39.99 per night and instead of asking for our reservation he asked if they still had a room at the price he had seen on the billboard and the lady clerk said she had plenty and he said he would take one one of those rather than the reservation he had made at 64. It was our first real vacation together and a very memorable one for me as I got to meet some of the finest people that live on this earth.

The immediate family and friends in Augusta Georgia were: Henry Wylds and wife Anita my husbands nephew and neice. Jewel Wylds and Daughter Shirley Dampier, son Jimmy Trotman. My Sister in law and Neice and Nephew Bob Wylds and Wife Elfie. Cousins Connie Walker and husband Harvey. dearest of friends Rev. Chuck Hunt and Wife Alice. Our family pastor for many years.

Monday 28, 2003 We went to visit the family cemetery site to pay our respects to his mother, father, brother and grandmother. Then we drove out to the last home of his mother and father and to see the subdivision that had been built on their land. Now it was time for lunch and my honey wanted to have crystal burgers which I had never seen or heard of before. They are a real small burgers and it takes four of them to make an equivalent amount as a regular burger. While we were eating I started to program cousin Bob's phone number in my cell phone and he saw it and phoned me immediately. We then drove out to Blyth and met cousin Bob. We had a real nice visit at his home while we made plans to have dinner with them when it was convienent for his wife Alfie. Upon returning to our hotel my husband placed a call to his nephew Henry and he wanted to come visit us at seven. Henry and Anita arrived on time and it was such a great pleasure to see them reunited. I was amazed at the resembalnce of our nephew to my husband.

Tuesday April 29, 2003 we had breakfast at the Waffle House (we sure needed that) as we had a full day planned ahead of us. We phoned Jewel Wylds (My husbands brothers widow) to see when we might see her and she suggested around two thirty would be good for her. We then went to the Augusta water works and Mike at the Water Works of Augusta gave us a Royal Tour and a very educating one for me. My husband’s grandfather, dad and older brother worked here as superintendants. His father served as a Superintendent of the Water Works for 30 years. It was very interesting to see all the work that’s involved to give the people from Augusta that beautiful clean and healthy water.

After an hour and half tour at the plant we drove by my husband’s elementary school (Monte Sano) then, we went by 1405 Glenn Ave the last home where he lived with his parents during world war two. We then went to Daniel Field Airport where he used to live very close by as a young boy. On December seventh 1941 he heard on the radio that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and he ran out on the airfield to notify some soldiers there at the airport as they had no idea what had just happened.

Our visit with Jewel Wylds was fantastic as she is such a lovely lady and you would never know that she is eighty seven years old.. she told us that her son Jimmy and Daughter Shirley would soon be there to see us also. I will never forget the look on their face when they saw my husband Bill and they all gave him big hugs. Later that evening we met for dinner with Bob Wylds and his wife Elfie, they took us to this fine place called Villa Europa we had a very pleasant visit and a excellent dinner and after a two hour stay there we went back to our hotel.

Wednesday April 30, 2003 We had breakfast at the Waffle House left there and went to visit my husband’s old high school (Academy of Richmond County) founded in 1783 and still in operation and much under security. Then we drove to the old drug store where my husband Bill used to be a soda jerk a beautiful place. As the day wore off we drove to Connie Walker’s place and her husband Harvey, we had a three hour visit with them and how wonderful it was. This lady had been waiting patiently for us for 2 days since we got there, when we arrived they gave us a very warm welcome and had lunch waiting on us. She had prepared (all home cooking nothing out of a can) a huge platter of fried shrimp, hush puppies, stuffed crabs, coleslaw and her very own tarter sauce. This lady played a very important role in my husband’s life as his Mother and another lady Mrs. Criswell looked after her and her siblings. She comes from a family of 14 brothers and sisters but years back as she was growing up they were very poor and my mother-in-law (god rest her soul) and another lady would supply food and clothing for these children, and Connie has never forgotten her gratitude.

Thursday May 1, 2003 This morning we had breakfast at the hotel lobby because we were to meet with Jewel and her children for lunch kinda early. Jewel had two daughters Shirley & Patsy and one son Jimmy when she married my husband’s older brother Grady Jr. so they became my husband’s bonus niece and nephews. We went to a Chinese Buffet place called Pekings for a buffet lunch and another nice visit. We went back to the hotel rested some then later that evening went back to Villa Europa with Rev. Hunt and his wife Alicia. They also played a very important part in my husband’s life as they looked after his Mother and Grandmother when they couldn’t manage for themselves after my father-in-law past back in 1972. The most beautiful people you’d ever want to meet.

Friday May 2, 2003 Leaving for Florida. We headed out early at 6 a.m. stopped along side of the road at The Coleman Emmanuel House Inn in Swainsboro around 7:30 a.m. the most beautiful home that was turned into a restaurant. Along the way we made several stops and took pictures of a beautiful back yard with little bridges and white picket fences. Then we finally made it to St. Petersburg, Florida with our friends Dick and Pyhlis Pilant. Again, there we got the royal treatment literally as they were very good and excellent host. That very first day we were there we wound down some then later she prepared this real nice dinner of Shrimp Scampi.

Saturday 2nd day May 3, 2003 We went for breakfast with Dick and Pyhlis to the Spring Garden restaurant a real nice family place. We went back to their beautiful home and around 2p.m. we took a ride and went to see their 41 apartments then rode all along the beaches went into to this area called Tierra Verde Beach and the Cabbage Key area where people think very highly of their mail boxes “t was just awesome. Later that evening we by to pick up Pyhlis’s sister Bobby and her husband Hale they took all four of us to dinner at this real fine place called Pepins. Then Dick took my husband home to rest after he dropped us off at this honky tonk place I didn’t get the name (anyway) I had a lot off fun and we went back home.

Sunday May 4.2003 thru Thursday May 8, 2003 Just fun visiting and hanging out with them enjoying her every day cooking, I almost forgot the evening of Tuesday May 6th, 2003 they took us out for dinner at the Pier a real nice and elegant restaurant very, very nice food and great service. We pulled out Thursday morning and headed for Mobile Alabama arriving at four in the afternoon and checking in to the Best Western. Friday we headed for Katy Texas and arrived at our daughters home at three in the afternoon. Another great visit with Cynthia and family. We left them Saturday morning around eight thirty and arrived back home at last around four thirty. Home sweet home!

Well, I thank first and foremost my good Lord that he gave my husband and I an opportunity to take this vacation and I greatly appreciate my husband for making and planning this very important trip for us. I hope and pray that this will not be the last as there wasn’t enough time to visit with all the wonderful people I met.