When Charles “Butch” Wilson returned to Haskell Airport for what his family called his final flight, he was surrounded by people who knew what flying had meant to him.
Wilson, 83, is receiving hospice care for dementia. His wife, Pam, said he doesn’t talk much now, but the subject of airplanes can still bring out stories.
“When the nurse would come over, you’d get him talking about flying because he owned a couple of planes,” Pam said.
A nurse with Refuge Care heard those stories and helped make a flight happen. A group of pilots joined in, taking Wilson up for about 30 minutes. His grandson and granddaughter also got to go up with him. The granddaughter hopes to become a pilot herself, Pam said.
The day at the airport included flowers, airplane-shaped cupcakes and shirts provided by Refuge Care. After the flight, one of the pilots explained a tradition: when a pilot takes their first solo flight the back of the pilot’s shirt is cut off. He turned to Wilson and said, “It’s never too late, is it?”
“I guess not,” Wilson said, chuckling.
The pilots cut the back from Wilson’s shirt, signed it, dated it and drew a picture of the airplane. Georgia Pack, who helped connect the Wilsons with the story, said she was moved when she saw Wilson cry as he understood the meaning of the gesture.
“I was very teary-eyed when I saw him cry,” Pack wrote. “He knew what it meant, too.”
Pam said the Refuge Care nurse had undergone surgery the day before but still came to help put the event together. The pilots and hospice team made the day special for Wilson and his family, she said.
“It was just wonderful,” Pam said. “We had a wonderful experience through this hospice.”
Wilson’s final flight brought him back to where his flying began. He earned his license at Haskell Airport in the late 1970s and flew for pleasure. Pam recalled that he owned a Piper Comanche and a Cessna.
Over the years, he flew around Oklahoma and to Texas, Colorado, Missouri and Iowa. Some of those trips were tied to family. Before Pam knew him, Wilson sometimes flew to pick up his sons during visits, including trips to Iowa and Texas.
During flight training, Wilson was supposed to take a solo trip only a limited distance, Pam said. Instead, he flew to Colorado and back.
“I would have to shake my head,” she said of some of the stories she heard about his flying. “I’m glad I didn’t know you then. I know I’d have gone up with you.”
One story involved a trip to Missouri. Pam said Wilson was asked to fly home an airplane bought by another man who didn’t know how to fly it. Wilson agreed and brought it back.
His love of airplanes began when he was young, when he put together model aircraft. His half-brother Dennis became an Air Force pilot during the Vietnam War, flying refueling planes, and later became a commercial airline pilot, according to the family.
Flying was one part of a life that took Wilson through several different worlds. He spent many years as a bull rider and met Oklahoma rodeo legend Jim Shoulders.
Wilson also built a career outside the cockpit. He was part owner of CNW Plastering, a Beggs company that worked in stucco and traditional plastering. Pam said the crew took on restoration work in older homes and was once recommended for a school auditorium project after a tornado damaged it. They completed the work by the deadline and received recognition for the results, she said.
Pam and Wilson have been together for 23 years and married for 22. They met in an antique store, where both shared an interest in collecting old things. Pam said their home is filled with antiques.
Pam’s career also took an unexpected path. After her first husband left, she had three children to support and accepted what she thought was a secretarial job. It turned out to be medical transcription, a field she had never worked in. She taught herself, then spent years working in hospitals, including St. Francis and St. John’s. She later worked at Creek Nation Hospital until Wilson’s dementia became too advanced for her to continue working.
For about a year and a half, Pam has cared for Wilson as his dementia has progressed. He can barely stand on his own now, she said, and the family takes each day as it comes.
Pam’s own story began in Sapulpa, where she grew up and graduated from Sapulpa High School in 1971. She remembers a downtown with a drugstore on nearly every corner, Saturday shopping trips and the Criterion movie theater. As a child, she and her siblings held on to their mother’s dress as they walked from a side street into downtown.
Her mother, Betty Applegate, is 97 and still lives in the home where Pam grew up, west of what is now Walmart. Pam said she rarely runs into people she knew when she visits Sapulpa, because the town has changed so much.
The flight at Haskell gave Wilson’s family a chance to honor a passion that had been part of his life for decades. It brought together the people who had heard his stories, the pilots who helped him return to the air and the Refuge Care team that helped make the day possible.
The signed piece of shirt will preserve the memory of the flight. For Pam, the day itself was a gift: a chance to see her husband surrounded by family and friends, sharing one more moment with the airplanes he had loved for so long.
(Photos and provided by Georgia Pack.)