William I Wyatt Jr.

Bill Wyatt, Jr.; friend, father, brother, son, husband, outdoorsman, stockbroker, raconteur, Texan; died at home of complications from Parkinson’s disease on Tuesday July 11. He was eleven days shy of his 84th birthday. Gregarious; blessed with smarts, looks and charm; Billy had a world-class talent for friendship. He could find shared humanity with strangers in minutes and could call upon a range of devoted friends remarkable in their variety: from young to old, rich to poor, upstanding to outlaw. To be in his presence was to be hailed often: “Billy Wyatt!” (Or, variously, “Captain Billy!” “Hooterfre!”) The person who approached, often with a huge grin, ran the gamut from hunting guides, socialites, artists, boat mechanics, surgeons, cooks, waitresses, investment managers; it could be in San Antonio, New York City, Vail, Rockport, or Carrizo Springs.

Bill Wyatt, Jr. was born at the Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio July 22, 1939, the first child of Eloise Richey Wyatt and William Wyatt, Sr. The Wyatts built a house in the new and sparsely populated subdivision of Terrell Hills in 1941, where in subsequent years many of Billy’s aunts, uncles and cousins built nearby. The family was complete in 1943 with the arrival of sister Dorothy. Every stage of life was fodder for Billy Wyatt stories, and one that emerged from boyhood was that the surrounding land was so undeveloped that as a 12-year-old Billy thought it perfectly fine to hunt dove on the block after school until a policeman ticketed and threatened him with jail; a similar incident occurred involving a beer keg when Billy turned 16. He graduated from Alamo Heights High School in 1957 where he played Pony League baseball and tennis. He entered the University of Texas and pledged Phi Gamma Delta, with a group of young men, he and they bragged was the best pledge class “in history.” Indeed, four of them would win the Distinguished Alumnus Award of UT, and they gathered every year with spouses for reunions in close connections that lasted a lifetime. At UT, Billy began dating Alice Lynch of Corpus Christi and Houston, a Kappa Alpha Theta. The college sweethearts were ‘pinned,’ Billy escorted Alice through debutante season and the pair traveled the world in the summer of 1961 with Alice’s family, where Billy claimed he nearly died after swallowing a fly while riding a camel in Egypt. (Bill’s hypochondria, where common colds became agonizing brushes with death, always amused friends and family.) Billy’s parents divorced while he was in college, a painful loss for him at a time when divorce was not common. He was very close to both his parents throughout his life. Billy graduated in 1962 from UT with a degree in business. He was R.O.T.C. in the Quartermaster Corps. Billy and Alice married on July 4, 1962, at Christ Church Cathedral in Houston, Independence Day being the only day he had off from the army. The newlywed couple started military life at Fort Lee, VA, when the whole base (and nation) feared war because of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The danger passed and Billy’s life-- ever charmed as he was the first to claim -- improved dramatically as Billy and Alice were transferred to the Presidio at San Francisco, one of the plum posts in the military, where he was head of the commissary, played a fair amount of golf, and began a lasting love affair with San Francisco. In 1964 Billy was discharged from the army as a captain and he and Alice returned to San Antonio to build a home and begin a family. They had John, born in 1965, and Richey, 1969. Billy joined his father’s business and enjoyed a 16-year career helping to grow Wyatt Advertising, which over the years had accounts throughout the Southwest and Midwest, mostly to service savings and loans. On Bill Sr.’s retirement, they sold the agency.

Billy lived every phase of life to the fullest, including, at this time of career transition, what might popularly be called a “mid-life crisis.” This was the fast-and-loose late 70’s and early 80’s and Billy was always every bit a man of his time. High stakes games of chance, drinking, speculative ventures, and non-traditional working hours, strained propriety and relationships. Billy and Alice divorced in 1987 after 25 years of marriage and Billy had to rebuild from the bottom with his characteristic faith in a better tomorrow. This era also brought depth to Bill’s greatest legacy: his humanity. Bill was always good company but adding wisdom to his presence, he had the unusual gift for turning experience and mistakes into empathy and awareness. Bill was loved for being an exceptionally generous, fun, humorous, steady and true friend, in no small part, because he had experienced ups and downs, sorrows and joys, and wore his heart on his sleeve.

Bill’s taste for risk and daily drama found the ideal foil once he set his sights on becoming a broker and matched wits with the stock market, one of his life’s enduring passions. By forging constructive working partnerships with colleagues near and far, Bill launched on a second career and quickly met with success, at first with San Antonio based, Arneson Kercheville Ehrenberg, where he stayed 12 years, and later, because of moves and rapid industry consolidation, JC Bradford & Company, PaineWebber, UBS, Wachovia Securities, and finally, Wells Fargo Advisors.

Stability also came in the form of his second great romance, with his marriage in 1990 to Jeanie Rabke, a San Antonio investment manager who shared Bill’s love for stocks, real estate, and the great outdoors. It was a great boon that Bill’s marriage to Jeanie brought a new hunting and fishing buddy to press into service, Trey Rabke, Bill’s third son. Bill and Jeanie enjoyed 29 years of marriage before her untimely death from cancer in 2019, and Bill was an instrumental partner in the growth of Jeanie’s investment firm, South Texas Money Management. Bill and Jeanie enjoyed the Texas Hill Country, Santa Fe, and especially, Rockport. They kept homes, traveled, and loved hosting friends, family and grandchildren for epic “trippers” vacations and weekends.

Bill was Episcopalian and at times in his life enjoyed church and classes in Christian theology, but his true church was the outdoors, applying skills he learned as a child with his father and uncle, and passed on to his sons. He kept fishing boats (and sank a few) and knew every stretch of the Texas coast, but especially Aransas Bay. He was a superb wingshot and entertained all generations with his ability to call even the most reluctant ducks and geese into decoys. He loved South Texas brush country deer hunts and for more than 20 years leased a large ranch in Maverick County where he could be found with his boys and guests nearly every weekend of hunting season, hunting all day with a break for his requisite nap, and cooking on an open fire under the starlight. He went on hunts to South Texas with a group of old friends from San Antonio every year for more than 60 years until his health began failing.

To spend time with Bill Wyatt raised the pitch of life. Life was more epic, romantic, more fun in his presence. Companions became accustomed to his judgment that the morning had been the “best hunting trip of all time,” or “the coldest,” the buck “the biggest,” the rattlesnake “the meanest,” the sunset “the most beautiful.” The steak at the end of the day, was always the “best damn steak I ever ate.” He believed it as well, every time, which made you see the truth of it.

Bill’s interests were broad and worldly. He enjoyed fine food, wine, travel, well-made clothes, thick books of popular history or biography, museums in small doses, Mexico, Europe, and Montana trout rivers.

Bill was pre-deceased by his parents, Eloise Richey Wyatt and Bill Wyatt, Sr.; and by his two wives, Alice Lynch and Jeanie Rabke. He is survived by sister Dorothy Haskell, a longtime resident of Houston, who now lives in California; by sons and daughters-in-law, John Wyatt and Susan Ludwigson, of Glen Ridge, NJ; Richey and Joan Wyatt, and Trey and Angela Rabke, of San Antonio; and by grandchildren: Ben, Eloise and Karin Wyatt; Henry and Taylor Wyatt; and Cypress, Meriwether and Storey Rabke.

The Captain will be sorely missed.

The family is immensely grateful for the loving care of Beatriz (Nana) Armija, Gloria Alvarado, and Ana Arredondo, and for the loving assistance for more than three decades of Sheila Huber.

The family will hold a private burial Monday July 17, at Sunset Memorial Park. Afterward, the family invites friends for a reception at the Argyle beginning at 11:30am.

Honorary Pallbearers

Harry Affleck

Jon Brumley

Bill Lyons

Carlisle Maxwell

Fred Middleton

Scott Petty

Robert Tucker

Pallbearers In Memoriam

Burton Barnes

Floyd Brown

Keith Brown

George Clark

Whit Clark

Jim Hayne

Tim Hixon

Willie Malone

Austin Moore

Jeff Moorman

Schreiner Nelson

Rees Oliver

Jesse Oppenheimer

Frates Seeligson, Sr.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.sunsetfuneralhomesa.com for the Wyatt family.