Pat Wardlaw, 96, peacefully passed away at home in Waco surrounded by family on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. He was a proud and loving husband, father of three, grandfather of six and great-grandfather of eighteen.
Funeral Mass will be held at 10:00 AM on Tuesday, January 7th at Saint Louis Catholic Church, 2001 North 25th Street, Waco with burial following at Oakwood Cemetery. Please join the family for visitation at 6:00 PM, Monday, January 6th in the chapel of Wilkirson-Hatch-Bailey Funeral Home, 6101 Bosque Boulevard, Waco followed by the Rosary.
Born Patrick Newton Wardlaw on August 3, 1928, in Del Rio, Texas to Newton Jasper Wardlaw and Willie Alice Mapes Wardlaw, he grew up in the wilds of Val Verde County, on the edge of the Edwards Plateau. Pat loved hunting the canyons and fishing and swimming in the Devils River. Life there began to shape the strong ethics and leadership qualities that guided him through later life. For those reasons, his father often called him “Sergeant.” Hunting on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, the thirteen-year-old knew that one day he wanted to serve his country. Three years later, with his father working out-of-state for the war effort, his mother sent young Pat off to boarding school at Subiaco Academy in the foothills of the Arkansas Ozarks. Subiaco was run by Benedictine Monks and his mother secretly hoped he might choose the priesthood one day. He did not and his descendants are pleased by his decision. While there, young ladies from nearby Saint Scholastica Monastery for girls in Fort Smith would often stage musical performances at the very isolated boy’s campus. On one such occasion, Pat saw and heard young Victoria Worden singing a solo of “The Magnificat.” He was spellbound and, despite the best discouraging efforts of the Saint Scholastica sisters, their romance blossomed…