Horace "Bill" Brewster

Horace “Bill”, as his friends and family called him; Brewster was born in Shreveport, Louisiana to Horace and Barr and Eula Mae Brewster on January 26, 1935. As an only child, he was truly spoiled with all the love and attention they had to give. He spent his school years with his middle class working parents attending the standard school classes and football, baseball and boxing activities like any normal boy of a proud father. But he also took piano lessons and developed a love of classical music to the delight of his mother. It was in the summers that he spent at his grandparents’ farm in Rustin, though, where he developed his deep Protestant Work Ethic and the sense of satisfaction at always giving his best effort, no matter how big or small the task. His passion for fishing developed there, also, a passion that he never forgot or seldom denied.

Intending to be a dentist, he attended Centenary College for four years where he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity but transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he joined the Army ROTC, got his pilot’s license and earned his degree in Geology, graduating with honors. It was there that he met his love, Marguerite Louis Link, of Oklahoma City and courted her until their graduation in 1960 when they married and shared the next fifty years.

Bill and Marguerite ventured around the world for twenty years with the Army. They had their first daughter, Patricia in 1962 while he was in Korea, their second daughter, Cheryl, in 1964 while in Augusta, Georgia and their third daughter, Susan, in 1968 while in Sagami, Japan. It was in Germany that their middle daughter, six at the time, was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, a debilitating disease that would eventually take her from them in December of 1999. But Bill raised all three of his daughters as any normal father would, push them to always do their best, never taking second best. He coached their softball teams and went to all their plays and recitals. Most of all, he shared his love of fishing and reveled in those five o’clock Saturday morning wake up calls to head out to the lake, even in it was ice fishing in February under the ruins of the old Frankenstein Castle where he would occasionally stop short, turn with a look of fear and ask if anyone else heard the groaning coming from the castle.

During his service in the Army, he was on the competitive rifle marksmanship team, attended Army Quartermaster Management School, Petroleum Management School and earned the Army Commendation Medal with “V Device” for his “exceptionally valorous action on 20 March 1969, when an enemy Viet Cong sapper team satchel charged the large petroleum storage tanks at tank farm No. 2…. With complete disregard for his own personal safety immediately exposed himself to hostile small arms fir along with the battalion commander, initiated a firefighting effort.” He was also awarded the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation for his heroism.

He retired from the Army in 1980 and worked for the next several years for Schumberger in San Antonio but moved back to Oklahoma City in 1987 where they permanently settled through his final retirement in 2003 when he finally decided that it was time that he and Margeurite relax and enjoy their grandchildren taking all of his grandchildren out and teaching them all about fishing as they each came of age.

Sadly, Bill passed away, and joined his parents and his daughter Cheryl, on Saturday, November 27th, 2010 after battling and beating lung cancer that had spread to his brain which left his body too tired. He was surrounded by his wife and all of his grandchildren and the wonderful employees of Grace Living Center in Edmond, who so wonderfully cared for him for the last 4 months of his life. He is survived by his wife, Marguerite, his daughters Patricia Tetreault and Susan Fleck, his grandchildren Brian, Wesley and Ashley Tetreault, Ryan and Sydney Rollins and Nicholas and Kendall Fleck.

We will miss him, his booming voice, his practical jokes, his any personalities he invented, his help building a deck at the lake house, the fishing trips and so much more, but he will live within each of us for all of our days.

The family will gather Wednesday evening at Hahn-Cook/Street and Draoer and then he will be laid to rest at Rose Hill Cemetery on Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 2:00 p.m., with a military service for his family and friends to say their final farewell to a man who was a hero, my dad, Bill Brewster.