Mildred Joyce Wait

Mildred Joyce Wait passed away on Friday, December 4th. She was a Dallas native, born Mildred Joyce Mayfield April 13, 1929 to Verna Robertson Mayfield and Henry Byrd Mayfield. She attended and graduated from Sunset High School and from there went to Gallaudet College in Washington, D. C. During her high school years she became deaf, and focused her college studies in Education of the Deaf. In college she met and married Mark Alton Wait, originally from Fergus Falls Minnesota. Mark and Mildred started a family of 3 children and quickly moved to Colorado Springs in 1959 where they raised their children. Mildred taught English to multi-handicapped deaf children at the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind. They moved back to Frederick, Maryland in 1969 and eventually settled in Middletown; there she taught at the Maryland School for the Deaf in Frederick. She moved to DeSoto, Texas in 1977 and taught at Spence Jr. High School for many years, and was recruited to work at the California School for the Deaf in Berkley, California; there she continued her career as the state institution transitioned to Fremont, California where she stayed until 1987. At that time she returned to her beloved hometown of Dallas for health reasons and lived in her DeSoto home. She was preceded in death by her husband Mark, her parents Verna and Henry, and her siblings Carlyle Robertson Mayfield, Gerald Holmes Mayfield, Dorothy Mayfield Veltman, Erwin Mayfield, Daniel Mayfield, and Nancy Mayfield Gautney. She is survived by her children Gerald Mark Wait of Waterloo, Iowa; Barbara Joyce Wait of Desoto Texas, and Michael Alton Wait of Cedar Hill, Texas, as well as daughters-in-law Christine Wait of Waterloo, Iowa and Amanda Walker-Wait of Cedar Hill. She was a proud grandmother to Daniel Christopher Wait of Selma Alabama, Mara Kathleen Wait Scarborough of Bono Texas, Juliana Noelle Wait Johnson of Sanger, Texas, and Reed Anders Wait of Cedar Hill, Texas. She has 2 great-grandchildren Jacob and Isaac Wait of Selma, Alabama.

Mildred enjoyed a career of teaching deaf children and teaching Sign Language in the community college setting. She enjoyed reading John Grisham novels, medical novels, and history. She excelled in cooking and quilting. Mildred loved to vacation in the mountains of Colorado, the beaches of Maryland Eastern Shore, and in her beloved hometown of Dallas Texas. Following in the footsteps of her mother Verna, Mildred was a devout Christian, worshiping at the First Southern Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, next at the Silent Friends Chapel of the First Baptist Church of Dallas Texas, finally at the Ovilla Road Baptist Church. She was a devoted wife, sister, mother, grandmother and aunt. She was appointed to the Americans with Disabilities Task Force by Governor George W. Bush, and enjoyed her retirement in her DeSoto home which she shared with her daughter Barbara. She lived over 91 years in the service of her Lord and enters Heaven with the words of the Psalmist “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints” [Psalm 116:15].