Lugay Weisenburg Wills was born on June 20, 1942, in Amarillo, about an hour away from her hometown, Tulia, Texas. Her father, Charles, owned the local theater in Tulia, and her mother, Jackie Lee, was a homemaker.
The family moved to Dallas right before Lugay entered grade school when her father opened several drive-in movie theaters. She attended Longfellow Elementary, University Park Elementary, McCulloch Junior High and Highland Park High School, where she graduated in 1960.
From there she attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she met her eventual husband, Will Wills, in a freshman French class. She was captivated by Will, who was the son of legendary movie actor, Chill Wills. In fact, Will attended UT instead of his hometown college UCLA after going to Brackettville, Texas near San Antonio for the filming of the John Ford classic The Alamo starring John Wayne.
It was meant to be. They were married on June 17, 1965 in Dallas. On his Facebook page on June of 2021, Will wrote, “June 17, 1965 I became the luckiest man in the world when sweet Lulu said ‘I do.’ 56 years later and she is still often sweet.” This was exactly his sense of humor.
They had their first son, William Todd, in 1966, and then Robert Charles in 1968 and Jeffrey Chill in 1970. The family lived in University Park and most Saturdays were filled with attending multiple soccer games. Lugay was even Todd’s coach for his Park Cities YMCA team for one season.
The family was turned upside down when Lugay found out she was pregnant and gave birth to Tracy Lee on March 20, 1979. From there, all attention turned to sweet Tracy, who was a talented soccer player and All-State cross country runner as a freshman for Highland Park.
The unthinkable happened on March 1, 1995 when Tracy died from complications of pneumonia. Lugay handled Tracy’s death with strength and grace and never stopped celebrating the anniversary of Tracy’s birthday.
Our mom had many interests and many friends. Lugay never met a person she didn’t take an interest in talking to- she would talk to a fence post if it would talk back. She was blessed with lifelong friends from her school days in Highland Park to her more recent friendships in the Northwood Women’s Club.
She loved playing Mahjong and was one of the first to play the game when it got popular in the United States, and she excelled at it. She played in weekly games with her friends, the women’s club and in her last years she played online with friends.
Lugay was the “cool mom.” If her kids wanted to go wrap someone’s house with toilet paper or throw water balloons at cars, she was almost always the driver. She was a second mom to so many and was happy to let her home be the base for whatever her children and their friends were doing during the summer.
Her passions included moving furniture around every other day and shopping for antique furniture with her best friend, Joan Martin. They traveled around the state in search of Barley Twist furniture and even started a web site “Mimi and Lulu” where they sold Barley Twist.
Lugay never missed an episode of the soap opera Days of our Lives from the time it debuted in 1965.
With a husband and three sons that were avid sports fans, Lugay became one too. She loved the Cowboys and Mavericks. She never missed a game the Texas Rangers played and like so many others was out of her mind when the Rangers won the 2023 World Series. She also loved her Dallas Stars and the last game she watched on TV was the Stars playoff game against Edmonton in the NHL Western Conference Final.
Her biggest passion was Texas football. She put on her burnt orange long sleeve T-shirt or gray Longhorn sweatshirt every game day. She posted “Horns Up” every Saturday on her Facebook page. She attended many games until her health precluded her from going.
Because of her Highland Park roots, she was a huge fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Rams’ Matthew Stafford. If they were on TV, she watched it.
Her other love was watching PGA golf on the weekends. She watched it from the time she could stream it in the morning until the TV broadcast came on later in the day. Her favorite players were Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler.
Lugay is preceded in death by her husband of 56 years, Will, and her daughter, Tracy. She is survived by her 3 sons, Todd, Robert and fiancé Louise, Jeff and 10 grandchildren.
Visitation will be from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday at Sparkman Hillcrest in Dallas. A private graveside service will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday for family and friends.
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