Leroy's Life. . .

I was born Leroy Vail Sedgwick to Alvin Jed and Gela (Vail) Sedgwick on March 14, 1931, in a farm house 2 1/2 miles north of the town of Byron, Wyoming. The family home was not only my birth place, but also that of my mother, Gela Vail. Today that home and the farm that it is located on belongs to Leroy and Mary Lou.

During the early years of my life, we moved back and forth between Byron and Bountiful, Utah. It was while we lived in Bountiful that my younger brother, Phil, was born. Our mother passed away when I was only five years old and Phil was one day short of two years of age., and our father died in a boating accident when I was ten and Phil was seven. At that time, we moved back to Byron to live with a bachelor uncle, O. L. (Ren) Vail.

While a student at Byron High School, I met Mary Lou Williams, who moved from Texas with the family, when her father moved there to work in the oil fields. During my senior year, I became very enamored with Mary Lou, and we dated steadily throughout the last part of my senior year and all through her senior year. At the end of that year, we were married. We decided to be married in Red Lodge, Montana, for it was there that my mother and father were married several years earlier. The year was 1950.

Soon after we were married, I spent a tour in Korea. During the time that I was in the army, and only ten days before I shipped out for Korea, our first child, Robert Leroy, was born.

Following my release from the army, I did some work in the oil fields in West Texas. It was here that our second child, Debra Lynn, was born. During that time I became interested in serving the Lord, and it was soon thereafter that I began preaching the gospel. The year was 1953. I have been serving the Lord as an evangelist ever since.

Preaching started in Grandfalls, Texas. From there I preached in Pioneer, Texas, (While there, our third child Daniel Twain, was born) Amherst, Texas, (There our fourth child, Cheryl Ann, was born), Quincy, Ephrata (Our fifth, Susan Louise, was born here) and Moses Lake, Washington (Where our sixth and final child, Angela Dawn, was born); Ilo Ilo City, Philippines, Henderson, Denison, and San Angelo, Texas. After serving for nineteen years at San Angelo, we made a move to Mount Enterprise, Texas, where we would be closer to our children and grand children. I served as the pulpit preacher at Mt. Enterprise until February 1, 2010, at which time I resigned, and Mary Lou and I moved to Henderson to live out our retirement years.


My mother.
Gela Vail Sedgwick 		Alvin
My father.
Alvin Jed Sedgwick


My family.
shortly before
mother's death.
My brother, Phil, and me
at the grave of my father
about six years later.


My maternal grandparents
My paternal grandparents


My father's brothers and sisters.


This picture of the Vail family was taken around 1910, when my mother was just a babe in arms. It consists of my grandparents, Orson & Martha (seated), Echo (on my grandfather's lap), Parley, Voilet, Louella, Maggie, Lorenzo, Archie, Angus (reading in a clockwise direction beginning beside my grandfather), and my mother Gela (on my grandmother's lap). Because it is framed and difficult to get to, we took a picture of it with a digital camera and reproduced it here.


Sedgwick Family Coat of Arms.
One Vail Family Coat of Arms.
Do you know of others?
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