Wilburn Ray Ridenour

Funeral services for Wilburn Ray Ridenour, age 90 of Conroe and formerly of Buffalo, will be held at 1 P.M., Saturday, February 3, 2018 at the Walters’ Buffalo Funeral Home in Buffalo, Texas. Interment will be in the Siloam Cemetery, south of Buffalo on FM 1618. A brief visitation will take place from 10 A.M. to service time Saturday at the funeral home.

Wilburn Ray Ridenour was born January 1, 1928 on the Beggs Family Homestead in Leon County. He was the oldest son of Leonard Thomas & Americus Victoria (Beggs) Ridenour. Wilburn served in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1948 where he was a mechanic in the motor pool. He loved to work on the Army jeeps.

Wilburn attended college and received his degree from Southwestern Business School, which led to a bookkeeping position for Crowflight Company, as well as five other companies. It was at Southwestern where he met the love of his life, Nina Doucette. They were united in holy matrimony on December 10, 1949. Wilburn, who was already a great mechanic from his experience in the Army, soon became the Maintenance Supervisor for a new company, TEXGAS (now Allied Chemical Company), remaining with them until his retirement.

His greatest love was hunting and fishing. Wilburn spent year after year walking the woods of the family land with a hunting rifle in his hand. He took all of his children fishing in their younger years where they spent the majority of that time in their small fishing boat. After retiring, he used his time to build Nina and himself a cabin in the woods on the family property and a fishing camp in San Leon, Texas for coastal fishing, and because of Nina’s love of the coast.

Wilburn was a jack of all trades and mathematically inclined...and everyone who knew him, knew that He was always RIGHT and NEVER WRONG! He became a food critic in later years, constantly commenting on the food lovingly served to him by family members. He would often describe the food as “rocks and sawdust”—not fit to eat. And, he could tell that someone put a grain of sugar in his daily cornbread….and protested loudly!

Wilburn’s faith was Baptist, and he studied the bible in his younger days, talking to his family yabout his connection with God.

When his grandchildren, great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren began arriving, he took on a new role and became known as “Big Daddy.”

Wilburn passed away January 30, 2018 in Shenandoah, Texas. He was preceded in death by both of his parents and sister, Joyce Aileen Swarthout. He is survived by his wife of sixty-eight years, Nina L. Ridenour; children, Robert Edward, Lucille Ray, Catherine Alice, Rebecca Anne, Steven Wayne, James Allen and Howard Mark and numerous grandchildren, great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren.

Walters’ Buffalo Funeral Home in Buffalo, Texas is in charge of all arrangements.