Longtime Brownwood resident Woodrow Pershing Staley passed away Friday, July 2, 2010. He was 92.
Graveside services will be held Thursday, July 8, 2010, at 10 a.m. at The Staley Cemetery. Visitation is set for Wednesday July 7, 2010 at Davis-Morris Funeral Home, from 6:00pm until 8:00pm.
Woodrow “Woody” was born June 26, 1918, in Clio, TX, to John A. Staley and Naomi Flanigan.
Woody did many things in his 92 years of life. He served in the U.S Army during World War II. He was a logger in Northern California. He brought the Rain Bird Irrigation System to the Colorado Valley of Arizona. He was the foreman of an orange grove, in Lemon Grove, California. Woody retired in California at the age of 60, and returned to the area of his birthplace in Brown County in 1985, when he was 68. He maintained a 2-acre garden at “the old home place” in Early, Texas for 14 years.
His wife of 49 years, Dixie Leigh Staley, his two brothers, Zara and Pete Staley, and his three sisters, Lorene Curtis, Agnes Dunn, and Celeste Micusik preceded Woody in death. Woody is survived by his three daughters, Janice Heller of Clearlake, California; Lynn Mollica of Virginia Beach, Virginia; Twiggy Goodwin of Ridgecrest, California, and six grandchildren, Robert Heller of Marin County, California, and Daniel Heller of Clearlake, California; Peter Mollica of Virgina Beach, Virginia; Michelle Borden of Waseca, Minnesota; Kailey and Natalie Goodwin of Ridgecrest, California, and five great grandchildren.
The family wishes to extend special thank you to the staff of Songbird Lodge, Brownwood Regional Hospital, Solaris Hospice and Dr. Locklear. The family suggests memorial donations in his memory be made to the Brown County Animal Shelter.
