This will sound like bragging, but God has blessed me and my activities and I thanked Him every day.
My career has been an electronic design engineer for Boeing. I worked in Canada for two years after graduating in 1959 from the university of Alberta. I moved to Renton and worked for Boeing for two years, attended Northwest College (now Northwest University) for four years (Bachelors in Theology) then returned to Boeing till retiring in 1995.
DeNelda Crabtree (Nel) and I were married in early 1969 and raised two boys, Tom, Thomas Owen, born in December, 1970 (named after my dad) and Jim born in February 1973 (named after James Irwin the Christian astronaut). Their initials are TOM and JIM. Nel passed away January 17, 2012 of pancreatic cancer—43 years of a wonderful life together.
Some of my highlights include spending my three summers while at Northwest College doing mission work, notably with YWAM. My main personal accomplishment at Boeing was inventing a computerized aircraft sound system for engineering flight simulators (Patented in 1993).
In the last dozen years I’ve repaired numerous vacuum-tube guitar amplifiers, mostly for worship team members who love that kind of amplifier. I’ve built maybe half a dozen guitar amplifiers of the transistor type.
I’ll add one more thing, I collected and read classic books. Mostly novels like Dickins and Hugo.
Well I’ll leave it at that. Love to all. – Wil
Wil was born in Alberta, Canada and moved to New Brunswick for his grade school years, before moving back to Alberta to complete his highschool and higher education at the University of Alberta.
One of his treasured hobbies was photography. He built his own darkroom to develop fascinating stereo photos. One photo made the cover of Stereo World, a prestigious periodical of the National Stereoscopic Association, in which he was a member and traveled to conventions when he could.
He also used his electronic background for serving the Lord by building a gym scoreboard, a pinewood derby finish line monitor and managing the Church sound systems for decades.
Wil moved from His Renton home of 48 years to Sumner in late November of 2020. This was a wonderful downsize that placed him close to his caretaking son Tom and his family. He commented to his Missouri granddaughter that he couldn’t be happier with his move and that everything on his list was checked off and more.
Wil continued his optimistic personality, always inquisitive, thoughtful, inventive and problem solving to the end. Often, he would smile explaining a special coincidence, “You know, it's like a little miracle!” Wil’s optimism in life, his belief in Jesus, God’s love for each of us, and his ongoing desire to learn and share will live on in those of us who knew him. He was content, reminding people to count their blessings. That is what he was doing in his final days as he was reading his self biography, “Wil’s Book”.
He is survived by two sons, Thomas (Janel), and James (Jennifer); five grandchildren, Avery(20), Miles(18), Ella(16), Aidyn(15), and Eli(13); half sister Treva (George Zieber) and sister Emeline (Grant Reist).
[posted 04/15/2021]