Brett William Wallace Obituary (1955 - 2025)

Born Jul 14, 1955, Brett William Wallace attended Richland High School in North Richland Hills, TX. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Brett William Wallace.

Graduation Year	Class of 1973
Date of Birth	Jul 14, 1955
Date of Passing	Jan 22, 2025
About	Brett William Wallace, born on July 14, 1955, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, passed away peacefully at home with family in Denton, Texas, on January 22, 2025, at the age of 69. Brett was the son of William Havard Blakewood and Marjorie Elizabeth Mann Foley. He spent his formative years in Colorado Springs, Japan, and North Richland Hills, Texas. A talented athlete and performer, Brett played football at Richland High School and showcased his beautiful singing voice in productions of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar with the Richland Hills United Methodist Church. An adventurous spirit, Brett climbed Mount Fuji as a teenager while living in Japan and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest honor in the Boy Scouts of America. He pursued his passion for art and craftsmanship by studying silversmithing under his grandmother, Dorothy Mann, and blacksmithing through specialized training and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Art from North Texas State University. In 1980, Brett married Linda Katharine Finlay during one of the hottest summers on record. He joined the U.S. Army in 1982, serving four years of active duty as an Infantry Officer and six years in the Army National Guard, attaining the rank of Captain. He completed Army Airborne training and was recognized as a Master Marksman. Brett worked as a goldsmith and silversmith at Olla Podrida in Dallas before joining the Army, and throughout his life expressed his wide-ranging creativity with exquisite gold and silver jewelry, sculptures in bronze, wood, stone and forged metal, and fused art glass. He created amazing sculpted exterior and interior doors for family members David Finlay and Leslie Couch, as well as uniquely beautiful wood, stone, and forged metal tables and other furniture pieces for and with family members. Brett was fascinated by every medium for expressing creativity from drawing, painting, and print-making to sculpture, jewelry, glass, fine woodworking, and metal-working and tried his hand at them all. Brett's academic achievements included a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of North Texas and a Master of Science in Counseling from Texas Woman's University. He loved teaching art classes at Selwyn School and Ryan High School, and later worked as a Licensed Professional Counselor at Decatur and Ponder Elementary Schools where he performed special counseling programs for elementary students using puppets he created named Bob and Sue. In the years since his retirement former students would tell him how much they enjoyed his counseling programs with Bob and Sue. A man of deep spirituality, Brett studied world religions extensively, became a non-denominational minister, and authored Suburban Mystic: Beginning Your Walk with God. He loved nothing more than engaging in meaningful conversations about spirituality and philosophy with family and friends, especially with a captive audience while taking long drives. Brett was honored to perform many baptisms and weddings for family and friends, including the weddings closest to his heart of daughter Eriel Wallace Hayes to Matt Hayes, niece Molly Finlay to Andrew Breimayer, and close friend Susan Mosher Crow Hoffman to David Hoffman. He spent many deeply thoughtful hours sharing his spiritual viewpoint via sermons and podcasts, and his message was always focused on love. Brett also expressed his creativity and skills with Music Theatre of Denton as a performer, set designer, and set builder for multiple musical theater productions. His roles as Samuel in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance and as a ghostly ancestor in Ruddygore were particularly entertaining. He had great fun singing and dancing in the role of Robert Livingston in 1776 and showed off his Scottish accent and beautiful tenor voice in Brigadoon. After retiring from counseling, Brett acted as a contractor and foreman for a joint family project to build a log cabin in Cuchara, Colorado working with his children and family members to excavate and build the foundation for a four-bedroom cabin in the mountains. He taught family members the skills needed to do the finishing work on plumbing fixtures, electrical fixtures, tiling floors and bathrooms, and painting to complete the beautiful three-story cabin. It was one of Brett's favorite places to be - enjoying nature, fishing, and hiking with family and friends in Colorado. He always loved a good s'more with marshmallows melted over a campfire. Brett had a wonderful sense of humor and loved to tease and joke with most everyone he met, but especially family members. His humor kept Linda, Eriel, Connie, and Adrien laughing even during his last months in hospice care. He had a running family joke involving a rubber chicken that became a traditional part of family Christmases. Brett was also a voracious reader of books on world religions, how-to books, and science fiction with an extensive library of books. He could figure out how to do or fix almost anything just by reading a book, and one of his favorite things in the world was helping someone else learn from his skills. Brett is survived by his wife of 44 years, Linda Finlay Wallace; children Eriel (Matt) Hayes, Connie Wallace, and Adrien Wallace; grandchildren Alex and Luke Hayes; siblings Laurie Shaw, Mark (Josephine) Wallace, Stephanie (Mike) Braudrick; and numerous nieces, nephews, and other relatives. He was preceded in death by his father William Blakewood, mother Marjorie Foley, stepfather Paul Foley, sister Sandy Turner, and brother Dennis Wallace.