Wilson Gisler

Full name: Wilson Fred GislerbrbrResidence at time of death: Peoria, ArizonabrbrDate of Death: September 3, 2005brbrLocation of Death: Encore Senior Village in Peoria, ArizonabrbrDate of birth: March 7, 1913 Age: 92brbrPlace of birth: Mission Valley Texas to John L. and Rosa Maurer GislerbrbrSurvived by: 3 Sons Galen Gisler and his wife Susan of Los Alamos, NewbrMexico, Gary Gisler and his wife Carol of Glendale, Arizona, and Greg Gisler and his wife Lisa of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and 4 Grandchildren Andrew and Elena of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Eric and Lisa of Glendale, ArizonabrbrService information: Services will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Saturday, September 13, 2005 at St. James Episcopal Church. Father John Rollinson will officiate.brbrBurial will be at: Mission Garden of Memories in ClovisbrbrMemorial Contributions: The family requests that donations in Freds memory be made tobrorganizations conducting research in senile dementia.brbrFuneral Home: Steed-Todd Funeral Home, 800 E. Manana, Clovis, New Mexico 88101br505-763-5541brbrAdditional information: brbrKnown in his early life by his first name, Wilson, and in later life by his middlebrname, Fred, Gislers useful command of four languages gave him a career that spanned three continents and seven countries. His ambition to study international law in Spain was frustrated by the breakout of civil war in the late 1930s, and he took refuge for a time in Switzerland, the country of his grandparents. During World War Il he worked in the strategic oil industry in Ras al-Tanura, Saudi Arabia, managing plants for the Arab-American Oil Company and acquiring a working knowledge of spoken Arabic. brbrAfter the war he drifted for a time among jobs in the Middle East and in Europe and eventually Ocotlan, Jalisco, Mexico, where he managed a petrochemical plant for the Celanese company. There, in 1949, he met and married Betty Lou Washington, sister of a colleague at Celanese, and began raising his family.brbrA currency crisis in the late 1950s and a desire to give their children a US education induced the family to move from Ocotlan to Clovis, NM, where Betty had been raised. In Clovis, Fred was office manager for an automobile dealership, and active in the lay leadership of St. James Episcopal Church, the Boy Scouts, and various service organizations.brbrEager for new challenges, in 1965 at the age of 52, Fred earned a Masters of BusinessbrAdministration degree in night classes at Eastern New Mexico University. Following this he went to the University of California at Berkeley to earn his Masters of Public Health degree. He worked in public health administration at the New Mexico Department of Health in Santa Fe, then moved with his family to Oklahoma City to work in that state's Department of Public Health, eventually rising to the rank of Deputy Commissioner for Fiscal Affairs.brbrHe retired in 1983 and moved with Betty back to Clovis where he soon came out of retirement to lead the Area Agency on Aging for the State of New Mexico. Betty, the love of his life, died of cancer in 1985, and Fred stayed on in Clovis for only a few more years before selling the house and buying a fifth-wheel travel trailer and ton pickup, which he drove on a regular basis among his chiIdrens homes in Oklahoma City, Los Alamos, and Phoenix, and his brothers home in Victoria, Texas. He held to this restless routine for several years, during the course of which he produced a rambling and as yet unpublished manuscript Memory, Mind, and Soul that treated broadly of his personal search for meaning and truth and of his direct-experience of progressive memory loss.brbrWith declining capabilities, he ceased his roamings in his mid 80s, and lived for a timebrsuccessively with his children. By February 2001 he was no longer able to care for himself and moved to Encore Senior Village in Peoria, Arizona close to his son Garys home. There he was visited regularly by his children, grandchildren, and other relations until he died peacefully at the age of 92. brbrHe was throughout his life an avid and capable musician, earning money with his jazz gigs as a young man, entertaining himself and those around him as he grew old, and instilling a love of music into his children and grandchildren. His lively sense of humor and irony will long be remembered by those close to him.