Billy Medford Luce

After a long, eventful, and productive life, the eternally youthful soul of Billy Medford Luce left his tired and weary body to return to his Heavenly Father on Tuesday, November 9, 2021.

Billy Medford Luce was born April 12, 1930, in the tiny East Texas town of Wells, to Earl Luce and Gertrude Pounds Luce. Billy attended Wells public schools and was a skillful basketball player for the Wells High Pirates, performing well enough to get a basketball scholarship offer from an East Texas junior college. However, like many people of that era, even with tuition paid, a young man still had to eat and have a place to sleep, so he decided to enter the East Texas timber products labor force.

Being gainfully employed, Billy now had the opportunity to not only court and woo, but marry fellow Wells High grad, the raven-haired Annie Elizabeth Fiedler. They married on July 9, 1949. Soon, the young Luces' started their family when Billy Terry Luce, their first son, was born. In 1951 Mr. Luce heard of this new chemical plant in Freeport, Texas, the Dow Chemical Plant, that was experiencing phenomenal growth and hiring a lot of workers. The plant grew from an 800-acre magnesium plant in 1940 to the worlds largest chemical plant by 1960. Billy packed up his wife and young son and moved away from the piney woods of East Texas, the only place he had ever known, in order to get a 25 cent/hour raise. Billy and Annie lived in Lake Jackson, for the next 41 years. They had two more sons, Derrel Joe Luce and Jay Bart Luce, and all three of their sons attended and graduated from Brazosport Independent School District. All three sons were also able, due in a large part to their upbringing, advice, and counsel of their parents, to attend and obtain degrees from outstanding universities, an opportunity that was out of reach and not feasible for their parents.

As children who were born and grew up in the Great Depression, Billy and Annie knew what it was like to be hungry and not to have a dime in their pocket. Growing up in the piney woods, meat was expensive and hard to come by. Billy’s dad was a hunter. In the 30’s and 40’s in East Texas every peckerwood was hungry and had a gun. Large game like deer were hard to come by- especially if you were not a large landowner. That left squirrel, rabbit, and sometimes game known as the “hoover hog” as dinner fare. Billy and Annie learned in their youth that nothing was going to be given to them, they had to earn it. Boy, earn it they did. Billy and Annie always made sure that there was plenty of good food on the table and clean clothes to wear. Remembering the meat that he had eating as a child or at times the meat that he didn’t get to eat, Billy managed to find a place to run a few cattle, and beef was always abundant in their freezer. Billy Medford also had a green thumb. He had not one, but two large gardens. Early every summer, the Luce family house would be overflowing with produce from the gardens, especially home grown tomatoes - way too much for the family to eat, even in a family with three hungry boys. Many were canned and some just given away to friends and relatives. The Luces' never went hungry, and meals were family events, and there was a lot of family. Billy had two brothers and Annie had nine brothers and sisters. Their families visited each other quite often. Billy loved to tell stories and had a few pet sayings that expressed his views on life. One of his favorites sayings that he would often say as the family sat down to a feast that made the table groan under its weight was “I wonder what the po folks are eating tonight.” His family understood this was his way of appreciating the bounty his family had, and that he did not take it for granted.

Billy also had good mechanical skills, and could fix a lot of things with minimal tools or supplies. His children did not know what an auto tune up or brake shop was, that was what the home garage was for. If your car needed a brake job or a tune-up, Dad would go to the auto parts store and install the parts himself. One time, one of his sons came home from college and they pulled and rebuilt a VW engine in their garage over just the weekend.

In addition to his skills at gardening, ranching, and mechanical ability, Billy Luce also had a good head for business. While somehow achieving the means to become one of the larger stockholders in Restwood Memorial Park, the only perpetual care cemetery in Brazoria County, Billy Medford was elected to the Board of Directors of that company and served for 25 years. During that time Restwood went from a small, privately owned company that was in the red, to a thriving business that had expanded rapidly, consistently earned a profit, and became an attractive acquisition target for the world’s largest cemetery and funeral home company SCI International Corporation, Dignity Memorial. Billy was rightfully proud of the growth and success of Restwood during his tenure on the board.

In 1993, with Billy and Annie both retired, but not from life. They returned to their roots in Wells, Texas to fulfill a lifelong aspiration to own their very own farm they had bought from Annie’s sister. They continued their self-sufficient lifestyle. Billy raised cattle and gardened, raising most of their food, and plenty that was given to others. Their sons and their families were always told to bring an ice chest when visiting, because the chests would go home stuffed with home raised and grown frozen beef and produce.

Billy fished and hunted his whole life and passed his knowledge onto his sons. One of Billy’s favorite things to tell people later life was that he knew one thing for sure, that he had taught his sons how to become great fishermen. This was something that pleased him greatly.

Billy was a proud follower and supporter of all his children’s and grandchildren’s activities. He and Annie traveled all over the United States to watch their children and grandchildren compete in sports and other activities. Billy and Annie could be found one weekend watching a ball game and the next attending an art show, all to support their children and grandchildren.

Other activities Billy and Annie enjoyed in life included dancing together. They were quite accomplished, so good that they won a dance contest at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth, Texas. They also enjoyed watching all sports especially the Astros, Texas A & M, and Baylor University sports.

In 2015, after a few medical emergencies, their sons decided, with Billy approaching 85 and Annie close behind, that it was time for their parents to move closer to one of their sons. Jay and Greta took them into their home to care for them for the next six years. Although they had wonderful accommodations, the best of care, and a spectacular beachfront view, Billy often commented that he missed watching his cows at the farm. Now, Billy is free to watch over his cows and his family from the best seat in the cosmos, unhindered by a body and mind that had been worn down by Father Time.

Billy Medford Luce was preceded in death by his parents, Earl Luce and Gertrude Pounds Luce, and bothers Earl Dean Luce and David Burl Luce.

Billy Medford Luce is survived by his wife, Annie Elizabeth Luce; children, Billy Terry Luce and wife, Marcia, of College Station, Derrel Joe Luce and wife, Debbie, of Waco, and Jay Bart Luce and wife Greta, of Surfside Beach; grandchildren Chris Luce and wife April, Tim Luce, Tony Luce, Ben Luce and wife, Rachel, Brandon Luce and wife Whitney, Barrett Luce and wife Beran, April Luce Mote and husband Trevor, and Jayson Luce. He is also survived by eleven great-grandchildren, along with many more distant relatives, family members, and friends in the Brazosport and East Texas areas.

Pallbearers will be his grandchildren.

A special thank you to their care giver, Maggie Hernandez, IPH staff members, Allison Pell Berg, Mark Walker, Candance McConaha.

Memorial donations can be made to: Forest Baptist Church, P O Box 177, Wells, TX 75976 or the church or organization of your choice.