Richard Page Wilson

Richard Page Wilson was born in Bath County, Hot Springs, Virginia in 1938 to parents J. Edward Wilson and Gladys Page Wilson (Garth). He spent his early years annoying his older brother, James Garth Wilson, playing at the feet of his Grandmother, Rachel Wilson (Bosley), and his aunts, Gertrude, Rachel, Nell, Miriam, Catharine (Alternate spellings: Kathrine or Kitty. All five “Wilson,” carrier women an unmarried), and Helen, while his uncles, Jed, and Alec were busy with their own families.

The family of four moved to Royal Orchard, close to Waynesboro, then on to a cattle farm with a thousand cattle and a thousand acres (what a place for two boys to play) near Bedford, and spent time at the Wilson Quarry near the town of Martinsville (all in Virginia). After attending Drewry Mason High School in Ridgeway, VA, Richard studied at Davidson College, Wake Forest College, Virginia Polytechnic Institute (member of the Rifle and Pistol Club), and Radford College. In 1962 he joined the Army and spent time at FT Monmouth, NJ, and the US Army Air Defense School at Fort Bliss, TX, where he excelled in basic Electronics, early computer electronics, and as part of the Fort Bliss Pistol Team, for the Post Marksmanship Unit (where he garnered several awards). When asked why he chose to be stationed in the west he stated, “(While enlisted,) I had a choice to go back to Europe or all the way to El Paso, Texas. I wanted to get as far away from the South as I could, and they both seemed just as far! As I got off the train, duffle bag in hand, and felt the clear, dry heat of the desert I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!” In 1965 he left the service just before the Vietnam War became a part of the American lexicon. While stationed at Fort Bliss, he met his bride, Carlota Luevano. Richard loved to sing and when the local college (UTEP) held auditions for the chorus of the opera Aida, he lept at the chance to participate. On one fated evening during dress rehearsal, while moving set pieces onto the stage, he asked a young, very attractive woman, in harem pants (Carlota) to hold his sandwich. She did, and absentmindedly left with her friends and the sandwich. The next evening, feeling a little guilty and wanting to shock this “gringo,” she made him a beef tong sandwich. For him it was love at first bite, she having unknowingly made him his favorite! With warm thoughts of home and Mom’s cooking floating around his mouth, he asked her out for coffee. They were married in the Church of Holy Family in El Paso, TX by the Reverend F. Lapieza in August of 1965. In January of 1968, he graduated from Texas Western College (The University of Texas at El Paso) with a Bachelor of Science in the Sciences and continued his education with classes in Civil Engineering at New Mexico State University while the newlyweds lived in Mesilla, NM.

In 1969, he began his career with the U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, in Denver, Colorado, and in 1970, he transferred to Flagstaff, Arizona, where he spent two years working primarily on the Navajo Indian Reservation to site, design, and log about 30 wells for the Emergency Drought Relief Program. While in Flagstaff, on a beautiful snowy morning, his favorite daughter Alida Wilson was born. In 1972, he transferred to Tucson, Arizona, where he worked on the Flood Hydrology of Arizona Program, and Flood Studies for the Flood Insurance Administration, in what he called “…the bowels of the City of Tucson…” and later for the Ak Chin Tribe, to provide data for well field design in the Vekol Valley. During those early years in Tucson, his second child Adrian Wilson was born. In 1980, Richard headed far, far north to work on river surveys immediately after Mt. Saint Helen’s massive eruption, then to the Grand Canyon mapping the bed of the Colorado River with augmented side-scan sonar (providing the first set of river bottom maps), and then later to Saipan to determine where to get fresh ground-water. During his 31 years with the Water Resources Division, he developed an overall knowledge of the geology and hydrology of Arizona, authored or co-authored about 16 publications, and drilled more than 100 test wells.

After “retirement” he turned his attention to writing steamy novelas, dragged into volunteering far too often for his daughter’s various theatrical adventures, starting a water resource company, ‘Western Gunn Hydrology,’ with his longtime friend Mike Carpenter, and family, with marked attention to his older brother, James, wife Helyn Antonia Wilson (Hudson), their two children and respective partners, and his five grandnieces whom he loved as much as he would later love his two grandchildren, Catharine Jo Wilson-Gunn and Emmanuel Kenneth Pinkney Wilson. James once said of his brother Richard, “…he’s not just a brother, but a good friend, really. That doesn’t happen all the time…”

Richard is survived by his wife, two children, their partners (Omar Hernandez and Carla Pinkney), his adopted daughter, Mary Jo Lovelace, his grandchildren, brother and his wife, their children, their children’s partners, five grandnieces, and several cherished friends. Through marriage, he is survived by his much-loved sister-in-law, Lucia Luevano, several nephews and nieces, several great-nephews and nieces, and just a few great-great-nephews and nieces. He loved broadly, was a dedicated water scientist and geologist, a total space cadet, terribly disorganized, and knew just a little bit about anything and everything you could think of to ask him (absolutely anything!). He loved the southwest as if he’d been born under a mesquite– from the banks of its rivers, the depts of its canyons, high mesas, mountains reaching to snow peaks, and striped and painted deserts. We will miss his warm hugs, incredible knowledge, stories that went on for way too long, his laugh, and the way he spray painted his beard bright green, for so many years, on Saint Patrick’s Day. Goodbye Papa Wilson.

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