Leila Wagner

Leila was born on 24th of January 1921 in Dallas, Texas to Alma Leila and Virgil Carl Ludwick. She was the eldest of five sisters. She attended Dallas Public Schools and Graduated from Crozier Tech High School in 1938, Dallas' oldest. She attended business school, prior to entering the workforce. She was working as a car hop at the Webber's Root Beer Stand on Oak Lawn Ave, when she met Cecil Fairchild, who worked across the street at the Mobil Station. Their budding romance was soon consummated by marriage. Their son, Carl was born in July 1941. Although not bound by draft status, Cecil joined the Navy in the early years of WWII. He was injured during the assault on Iwo Jima, and later died of complications at New Orleans Naval Hospital in June 1945. She was just twenty four years old when widowed.

She worked extremely hard to raise and care for a young son on a woman's wage, and a meager stipend from the government. She met James Cecil Wagner several years after the war, and dated him exclusively until they married in 1962. James was Ninth Army Air Corps Sergeant, who was in Germany when the war ended. Leila worked for Graham Brown and Austin Shoe Companies, up until her retirement in the middle sixties.

She is survived by son and daughter-in-law, Carl and Toni Fairchild, three grand children, Leann, Matthew and Stephanie, five great grand children, Kyle and Max Anderson, Emma and Anthony Fairchild, and William O'Conner Horn, two sisters, Ruth and Judy, and sister-in-law, Doris Lavender.

She is preceded in death by mother, Alma and father, Virgil, her husbands, Cecil Fairchild, and James C. Wagner, two sisters, Hope Graff and Joyce Harris.

She loved her family and friends, and would do anything on their behalf. I told her not long before she died: "MOM, YOU HAVE RUN A GOOD RACE".

She will be sorely missed.