George "Bill" H. Gee Jr.

George Hugh Gee, Jr. passed away peacefully on November 3, 2020, with his loving wife by his side. He was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on 9-30-30, the first and only child of George Hugh and Georgia Taylor Gee. He was named after his father, but the nurses nicknamed him “Billy the Turk” because of the bandages wrapped around his head following a difficult birth—and the name stuck. He was called “Billy” until college, when he switched to “Bill.” His tales of having to walk through deep snow “uphill both ways” to get to school evoked a bit of sympathy in his children until he got to the part where he “had to” ride a pony to school some days. He graduated from St. Joseph’s Central High School and held fond memories of playing football there.

Bill met the love of his life, Eulalie (Lee) Haley, at a bowling alley in Columbia, Missouri, while a student at the University of Missouri. College life went by quickly but he formed lifelong bonds with his Delta Upsilon brothers. In one whirlwind week of June 1953, he graduated from MU, received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force, and married Lee. After his tour of duty in the USAF in Portland, Oregon, they moved to Wichita, Kansas, where his parents had moved while he was in college.

Bill worked at several businesses and ran his own trucking company, Arrow Transfer. The people he worked with—his father at the Moose Lodge and his dear friend, Art Farnham, at Piping and Equipment—were the highlights of his jobs. But the driving force of his life was his family. He was who he loved, not what he did.

He mentored his young son in the YMCA’s “Indian Guides” program and he ate a lot of Girl Scout cookies. The YMCA program gave him a lifelong interest in the history and culture of Native Americans, and he never stopped liking cookies either. He also loved going places, whether it was a trip to the farmer’s market or a trip to Europe. His family treasures memories of individual trips with him—his son’s national shooting competitions, skiing with his daughter, a special summer Colorado adventure with his 10-year-old twin grandsons—as well as family ski trips and summer vacations, almost all road trips. He really hated to stop—for anything—along the way, so much so that we ran out of gas one winter in rural Colorado. He coasted the ’68 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser to a stop across from a farmhouse which turned out to have a gas pump and he swore he planned it that way.

He told us he couldn’t even boil water, but after retirement, he stunned his family—most of all, his wife—by discovering the joys of cooking. He and Lee prepared delicious Sunday brunches for their children and grandchildren and, eventually, great-grandchildren, every week for many years. He enjoyed his time at Larksfield Place, and even there, his family benefited from his considerable skills as a handyman, mostly on a consulting basis.

He leaves behind a deeply grateful family: Lee, his wife of 67 years, son Bill Gee (Teresa), daughter Kimberly Gee Vines (Monte), grandchildren Andy Gee, Brian Gee (Liza Jackson), Thomas Gee (Kenzie Bishop), all of Wichita; Christine Vines, Matthew Vines of Dallas, TX, and great-grandchildren Roslyn and Madilyn Gee and Hudson Gee, of Wichita.

Bill and his family deeply appreciate the genuine care and loving attention he received in Healthcare at Larksfield Place and from the kind souls of Hospice there. A masked and socially-distanced graveside service will be held on November 28th at 2:00pm at Lakeview Cemetery, 12100 E. 13th Street, Wichita, KS.