Joy Glen Wright, Sr.

Joy Glen Wright, who had been living in Temple at The Meridian Senior Care Center, and formerly lived in Groesbeck, passed away in Temple on Tuesday, January 29, 2019, at age 88, surrounded by his wife, daughter, sister and niece.  Visitation will be held Friday, February 1, 2019 from 6:00-8:00 P.M. at Groesbeck Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Saturday, February 2, 2019 in the Groesbeck Funeral Home Chapel, with Brother Royce Smith officiating.   Burial will follow in Faulkenberry Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Dusty Allen Wright, Joy Glen Wright III, Jim Mangum, Allen Sanders, David Henderson, and Raymond Sanders.   James Morgan and Kevin Bracht will be honorary pallbearers. Joy was born November 25, 1930 to Leonard Earl Wright and Ruth Cox Wright in Mexia.    He grew up in Box Church and other local communities in Limestone County,  until the family moved to Refugio when he was twelve. Joy joined the U. S. Army in 1948 and after a twenty-year and six month career in the Army, he retired with an honorable discharge in 1968.   He served during the period following WWII in Occupied Germany, also in Korea, and in Viet Nam.   When he entered the service he was in the military police, but he trained and became skilled in helicopter repairs, which he did in both Korea and Viet Nam. Joy married Waneta Mae Hervey in 1953.    She was able to spend some of the early years with him in Germany.    When he retired they lived in Grand Prairie for a time while he worked at LTV Aircraft, and then they moved to Groesbeck.   She passed away in 1996. Joy and his siblings grew up attending church, and his grandfather was a traveling evangelist, who walked from place to place yet preached in all states in the union.   This grandfather, G.E Wright with his brother, J.B.F. Wright, wrote the famous hymn, “Precious Memories.” Like other families of his youth, Joy grew up loving music and dancing at home dances.   He was at Fort Hood at the same time Elvis was stationed there, and remembered Elvis sitting on the back of a car, playing and singing, while a crowd followed him down the street.     While he was stationed in California, Joy took dancing classes at the Arthur Murray School of Dance.  Joy met his second wife, Virginia, while attending a Singles dance at Frank’s Lakeview Inn at Belton.   They found they both were a good couple doing the jitterbug, as well as in all dancing.  Joy was united in marriage with Virginia Delores McNeely on January 2, 1998 and they spent many enjoyable hours dancing together.    He listened to music all the time while working or relaxing, and sang along (and had a good voice), and even danced by himself.  He liked to make up some new dance steps to teach Virginia.  The radio in his shop was left on 24/7 and in later years he sat in his pickup in the yard with the radio turned up extra loud so he could hear it better.    Joy was talented in mechanic  and body work and loved tinkering with vehicles.    He had an upholstery shop at his home for cars and boats, until the tornado in 2006 blew it away.   He built one local lady a car from a kit, and he acquired three different limos over the years, which he fixed up and drove only for his own fun, including taking his wife and family places and for a couple of years taking the singles group out on New Years Eve.  Joy loved teasing people, or in some cases, “tormenting” his sister, wife, or anyone else,  which was more fun to him at the time than to them, but left fun memories with the family.  There was always a lot of laughing going on.  Joy and Virginia attended Bethel Baptist Church for some years and later Lost Prairie Baptist Church.  Joy was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife, Waneta Mae Wright in 1996; two infant brothers and his brother, Donald Earl Wright. He is survived by his wife, Virginia Wright of Groesbeck; son and daughter-in-law, Joy Glen Wright, Jr. and Rachelle Wright of Groesbeck; daughter, Crystal Shanell Wright of Waco; sister, Dorothy Nell (Wright) Medders of Groesbeck; stepdaughter and husband, Virginia Carol and Kevin Bracht of Troy; stepdaughter, Cynthia Elaine Morgan of Temple; stepson and wife, James Edward and Vicki Morgan of Brenham; sister-in-law, Sue Wright of Grand Prairie; 9 grandchildren; 11 great grandchildren; 1 great-great grandchild; and numerous nieces and nephews.