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- Find-a-Grave Obituary
Walter Ware Bass
Walter Ware Bass died November 15, 2012, in Roseburg, Oregon, at the age of 93. He was born on January 22, 1919 in Thornton, Arkansas.
Walter grew up in nearby Fordyce, graduating from Fordyce High School in 1936. He always dreamed of returning to Fordyce someday as he regarded it as home. After graduating from Chillicothe Business College, Missouri, he began working for Ford Motor Company in Houston as an accountant in 1940.
After America entered World War II, Walter joined the Army in 1943, serving as a First Lieutenant. He saw combat action in the Philippines on Luzon Island until he contracted malaria.
Upon his return to work at Ford in 1946, he attended night school at the University of Houston where he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in accounting. It is also where he met the love of his life, Betty Jane Hicks.
They were married in 1947 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Over the course of their twenty-seven year marriage they had six children. After several transfers by Ford they last moved to Yorba Linda, California, in 1970. Betty preceded Walter in death in 1974. He later wed Wilma Cyrilla Wright, in 1979.
After forty-two years Walter retired from Ford Motor Company in 1982. He and Wilma enjoyed retirement by traveling, gardening, researching their respective family genealogies and were active members in the Yorba Linda United Methodist Church, where Walter also served as church treasurer. Upon Wilma's death in 2006 Walter moved to Roseburg, Oregon, where he resided at Riverview Terrace and Callahan Court.
Besides his two wives, Betty Jane Hicks & Wilma Cyrilla Wright; he was preceded in death by his parents, D. Walter Bass and Alice Ware Martin-Bass; his siblings, including sisters, Alice Marjorie Embry (1989) and Mildred Helen Grove (2003), as well as a son, John Stephen Bass, who died at two weeks old (1954), and daughter-in-law Catherine Rogers Bass (2012).
Walter is survived by five of his children, James Martin Bass and his wife Vanessa; Walter Hicks Bass and his wife Martha; Thomas Ware Bass; Robert Allen Bass and his wife Becky; and Julie Ann Bass Adkins and her husband Mark. He is also survived by twelve grandchildren; Lisa Ann Brown, Amy Elizabeth Mosher, Steven Vining, Benjamin Ware Bass, Brandice Rae Richardson, Brittany Ann Scheel, Matthew James O'Keefe, Matthew Roy Adkins, Ryan James Adkins, Kayla Renee Morgan, Jade Elizabeth Bass, and Evan James Bass. Additionally, he is survived by 17 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be conducted at the Benton Funeral Home in Fordyce, Arkansas. He will be buried in the Oakland Cemetery in Fordyce. Walter's return home will then be complete. Arrangements by Benton Funeral Home in Fordyce. To sign the online register visit www.bentonfuneralhome.net.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1919 - 2012 (93 years)