Charles Wilson

VILLA RIDGE, Ill. -- Funeral for Charles L. Wilson of Villa Ridge will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at First Freewill Baptist Church in Olive Branch, Ill. The Rev. Curtis Alderson will officiate. Burial will be in Olive Branch Cemetery, with full military honors by VFW Post 8891 of Mounds, Ill.

Friends may call at Jones Funeral Home in Tamms, Ill., from 5-8 p.m. today, and at the church after 11 a.m. Sunday.

Wilson, 75, died Thursday, Oct. 11, 2001, at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau.

He was born March 7, 1926, in Chicago, son of Claude and Goldie Cox Wilson. He married Gladys Sanders.

Wilson was a retired meat cutter for grocery stores. He was a member and trustee of First Freewill Baptist Church and a volunteer at Christian Academy School in Olive Branch. He moved to Villa Ridge in the 1990s from Mojave, Calif.

He served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Survivors include his wife; three sons, David Wilson of Bonne Terre, Mo., Joe and Phillip Wilson of Bakersfield, Calif.; two daughters, Sharon Baker of Malden, Mo., Annette Edblad of Mojave; his stepmother, Margaret Wilson of Villa Ridge; three stepsons, Gary Stevens of Dallas, Texas, Larry Stevens of Thebes, Ill., Terry Stevens of Mount Morris, Ill.; three stepdaughters, Teresa Glass of Salem, Ore., Ellen Simmons of Olive Branch, Louise Brown of Shreveport, La.; a brother, Billy Wilson of Cobden, Ill.; 20 grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; 14 stepgrandchildren; and five great-stepgrandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents.