Tarrant County - Obituaries - Pawnee Bil Courtney, Jr. ****************************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by: Tom and Cheryl Crump - twcrump@earthlink.net USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ****************************************************** PAWNEE BILL COURTNEY JR. 1926-2007 By JAN JARVIS Star-Telegram Staff Writer Pawnee Bill Courtney Jr. would wander from table to table, chatting with folks and sharing a cup of coffee at the Lake Worth diner he managed with his wife, Vivian. "The joke was he had to eat lunch with every single person," his daughter Lisa Courtney said. The diner with the giant neon V outside closed in 2003. But for its owner and namesake, Vivian Courtney, the memories of the 42 years she shared with her husband there live on. Mr. Courtney, 81, died Tuesday. Mr. Courtney's grandmother loved Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show in the Fort Worth Stockyards so much that she named her son after it, and he passed the name on to his son. In 1946, Vivian Courtney bought the cafe, known for its chicken-fried steak and whole catfish. Mr. Courtney became a regular customer. One day, the never-married 35-year-old north-side native struck up a conversation with the gregarious restaurateur. Although both had attended North Side High School, they hadn't really talked much until that day in the diner. They hit it off. Vivian Courtney said she was attracted to the "quiet, subdued man who didn't act very interested in her." Once while they were courting, the couple got into a tiff and she refused to talk to him for four months. "He came in one day, sat down at the counter, and from the time the restaurant opened until it closed he played Only You on the jukebox," Lisa Courtney said. The couple married in 1962. Mr. Courtney, whose ornate plasterwork adorns Travis Avenue Baptist Church and other downtown Fort Worth landmarks, suddenly quit his career after his wife told him that she needed help a few years after they married. "One day, he just showed up at the restaurant and told her he quit and was coming to help her," Lisa Courtney said. "From then on, he got up every single morning at 5 a.m. and was at the restaurant without fail." He was always a hardworking man who was willing to help anyone at any time, relatives said, and his word was as good as gold. "If he said he would do something, he was going to do it," Vivian Courtney said. Others repaid him for his generosity. When he built the family's stucco house in Lake Worth, a lot of the men he had worked with helped him, Lisa Courtney said. "They volunteered their labor to do the house," she said. The man who could fix anything loved all things old. Cars. Cash registers. Coins and more. He had license plates from every state. "He absolutely loved antiques," Lisa Courtney said. Mr. Courtney supported the historical society, started the first Lions Club in Lake Worth and always made time for his family, she said. "He was willing to do anything," Lisa Courtney said. "We'd always want to go to Six Flags, and he'd ride with us on the wildest rides in the world." Survivors also include daughter Lynda Richey, son Bill Chenault and sister Cheri Stone. Services 2 p.m. today at John Knox Presbyterian Church, 4350 River Oaks Blvd. Interment at Greenwood Memorial Park.