Alan “Woody” Woodham

Alan St. Clair Woodham, 92, of Granbury, Texas left this earth to be with the angels at 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, August 29th. He was surrounded by his loving family in the comfort of his home. Funeral services will be held at Wiley Funeral Home in Granbury, TX at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 9, 2017. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the Pecan Plantation EMS and the Humane Society of North Texas.

Alan was the third of three children, born in Grayville, IL, to George and Edith (Foster) Woodham, on August 17, 1925. He was raised in Detroit, MI where he fondly recalled attending Tigers games at Briggs Stadium and caddying at the Detroit Golf Club as a teen. Alan met and married his bride of 71 years, Anne Bledsoe, in San Antonio, TX while serving in the Army Air Corps toward the end of World War II. They returned to Michigan, where he attended and graduated from the University of Detroit with an engineering degree in 1951, before embarking on an accomplished and fulfilling career that included stops at the Bonneville Power Administration, the Detroit Tank Arsenal Plant, Aerojet General, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. His team at Aerojet General delivered the propulsion systems for the US Navy’s submarine-launched Polaris missile, and at the National Laboratory he was part of the prestigious and top-secret ADWP division. In the years between his stints with DTAP and Aerojet he consulted for numerous firms under Consultants and Designers of New York, which required relocating annually and afforded his family the opportunity to live in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, New Haven, IN, and Paoli, PA. While proud of his boyhood home, he was happiest in the Great West and enjoyed stops during his working years and retirement in New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Texas, his home from 1984, when he retired, until the date of his passing. Golf, swimming, hunting, investing in stocks, traveling by cruise liner with his wife, reading Louis L’Amour novels, and spending time with his family were among his favorite pastimes. From the time he retired, until hanging up his clubs in 2010, he played golf nearly every day. Alan was preceded in death by his brother Francis and his son-in-law Jack Caruso.

He is survived by his wife Anne, daughters Cynthia Caruso of Austin, TX and Carol (Wayne) Guffey of Granbury, TX, grandsons Nathan (Jennifer) Caruso of Manor, TX and Etienne Caruso of Berkeley, CA, great grand-daughter Nathalie Caruso, and his sister Kathryn (Fred) Campbell of Royal Oak, MI.