A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for Audrey Faye Gathright
Audrey was born in 1930 and grew up on a small farm outside Dill City in western Oklahoma, where she worked hard collecting eggs, milking cows, picking cotton, and other farm chores. After graduating from high school, she worked as a nurse in nearby Elk City at Community Hospital (she is listed as a nurse in Elk City in the1950 census). She was a practical nurse, meaning that she helped out with basic patient care but had not been to nursing school to learn more-advanced duties. It was during this time that she met Don Wilson and married him. They moved around a lot in the early years of their marriage because of his job on an oil-exploration crew. They had their two children during this time. (An amazing coincidence is that, when son Michael was born in Houston, TX, the supervising nurse in the pediatric ward was the woman who had been Audrey's supervisor at the hospital in Elk City, OK.) In late 1958 they moved to Albuquerque, NM, so that Don could work for his father in his electronics business. She lived in Albuquerque the rest of her life, until she died of ovarian cancer in 1998, only 68 years old.
Mom didn’t have a lot of hobbies, other than reading. She was a good cook, and did a lot of sewing, making clothes for herself and Cathy. The most important thing to her was family. She loved visiting family members, and having them visit us. Our one-week vacation each year was visiting her parents on their farm in Oklahoma, and of course we always saw her brothers David and Glen and other family members when we visited there. Sometimes we would also visit other places; I especially remember visits to her Aunt Evelyn in Amarillo and to her sister Ila’s family in the Lubbock area. Her Aunt Lois and Uncle Ollie also lived in those places, and sometimes we would see them too. She regularly wrote letters to a lot of family members. I’m sure she would have liked to talk to them more, but long-distance phone calls were expensive in those days. Of course she was crazy about having grandkids, and it’s a real shame she didn’t live to see them grow up…
One thing I always remember about her is hersense of humor. Some of her funny expressions:
“Use your head for something other than a hat rack!”
If you would start saying something with, “Well…” she would say, “That’s a deep subject.”
If you would start out with, “Hey…” she would say, “Hay is what horses eat.”
If you were blocking the view, she would say, “You make a better door than a window.”
If you made a sneeze without blocking it, she would say, "Do you give a towel with your showers?"
Her birth certificate says born in Dill City, but it also gives residence of parents as Dill City, which I'm pretty sure is not correct -- they lived on their farm near Dill City.
The name on her death certificate is Audrey Faye Wilson. Cause of death was ovarian carcinoma. She died at St. Joseph Hospital - Downtown.
Headstone of her grave says Audrey F. WILSON, 1930 - 1998.
Note: Some of the information in these pages is uncertain. Please let me know of errors or omissions using the email link above. ...Mike Wilson
Page generated on 31 October 2023; see http://wilsonfamilytree.org/ for further updates