Winston Hudson

Winston Hudson built his life from the ground up. The only child of very poor folk in Oklahoma, he worked hard for everything he achieved, which was quite a lot from such humble beginnings, and, blessedly, enjoyed doing it. The 1943 Valedictorian from Healdton High School attended the University of Oklahoma on a track scholarship for a semester before he turned eighteen, enlisted in the U S Army, and was sent to the Philippine Islands during World War II. This skinny kid became a sharpshooter and rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant before returning to college, where he met and married Joan Aingell, another Valedictorian, from Eufaula.

They left school and moved to West Texas, where Winston built grain elevators, worked in a cousin’s oil field service business, and started a family: Jolynn in 1949, and Chuck, five years later. By then the family had relocated to Abilene, where they lived for 35 years, and Winston went to work for a subsidiary of General Dynamics. He finished his exemplary career as an executive with Lockheed Martin, managing plants in Harlingen, Ft. Worth, San Diego, and Korea.

Retirement brought them home to Oklahoma, but Eufaula proved too small for their energies; so they moved to their last home together on the Blanco River in Wimberley. There Jo and Winston made friends at the First United Methodist Church, taught Sunday School, and participated in a host of civic projects that endeared them to the community. They loved hosting their children and grandchildren and rafts of friends at their beautiful place on the river. Jo died in 2009 and Winston stayed on until the flood in 2015 filled their home with six feet of water and tore out enough cypress trees to break one’s heart.

His last years in Austin at Westminster Manor gave him an opportunity for new friendships, especially the gym rats he visited daily and the “Dungeon Dwellers” on the ground floor who were brave enough to eat his deviled eggs at their regular cocktail parties. As with most birthdays he celebrated his 96th with friends and family with hamburgers and margaritas at Dirty Martin’s (they were the same age!). Nothing gave him more joy than news and pictures of his 11 grandchildren and greats, spread from Alaska, to Colorado, to Texas, brilliant beauties each one. His deep faith and courage, intelligence, integrity and good judgement in throwing a rope around Joan Aingell Hudson were the basis of the good lives each of us has enjoyed. We could not be more proud or grateful.

Our gratitude extends to the good souls of Westminster, Hospice Austin, and to his all-star caregivers: Elleni, Grace, and Louisette.