Joe Summers Wills, born 8 April 1903 in Stillmore, Georgia, son of Joe Denny Wills and Mary Elizabeth Coleman Wills, died 13 January 1984 in Pasco County, Florida.
While he may have been born in Georgia during the time his father played for the minor league baseball team in the area, Granddaddy Wills was raised in South Carolina where both sides of his family had made their homes for generations. He became a barber with an impressive following. On April 8, 1928, he married Addie Lou Holt. They had four children but only two survived infancy, my father Joe Denny and his sister Patricia Ann (Aunt Pat).
My grandfather loved to hunt and he loved his dogs, birds, garden and he loved to tell a story. Not a made up one mind you. His were vivid and accurate remembrances of his youth and life in general. Later on in the 1940s, he took his wife with children in tow to Pinellas County, Florida where they made their new home. Since both my grandparents had roots and ties to South Carolina, there were many trips to visit immediate and extended family on Granddaddy's Wills, Coleman and Free side and Grandma Wills' Holt side.
After a short return to South Carolina in 1964-66 they bought property in a new development in Pasco County, Florida called Crestridge Gardens. In 1966 he and my grandmother moved back to Florida and were part of the growing retiring population that were making the Gulf Coast and state of Florida their retirement home.
