Bailey Renee Walterscheid

Bailey Walterscheid was born on May 28, 1996, to Wade and Rhonda Walterscheid. Her grandparents are Julian and Carrie Walterscheid and George and Fran Jones. She was a member of the Children of the American Revolution and, later, the Daughters of the American Revolution. She attended Sacred Heart Catholic School in Muenster, Texas, where she sang in the choir and participated in basketball, track, and cheerleading. She received the Girl Scout Gold Award and was Homecoming Queen, Miss Sacred Heart, and salutatorian of her high school class.

After graduating from Sacred Heart in 2014, Bailey attended Hardin-Simmons University, where she majored in biology with a minor in biochemistry. While at Hardin-Simmons, she served as a laboratory assistant, a tutor in chemistry, zoology, and mathematics, and as a resident assistant in her dormitory. She volunteered for Meals on Wheels, Habitat for Humanity, the Texas Mission of Mercy, and other charitable organizations. She served as an officer in multiple social clubs, including president of her honors fraternity. She participated in the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s summer dental program and for two summers worked as a dental assistant for Smiles by German Design.

After graduating cum laude from Hardin-Simmons University, Bailey enrolled in the dental program at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, where she was a member of multiple organizations and the president of the student chapter of the Christian Medical and Dental Association.

Bailey was an outgoing person, able to relate to her young cousins, her grandparents, and even complete strangers. She was always ready to throw herself whole-heartedly into anything and to invest herself in others. She loved to travel anywhere: Honduras on a mission trip, Costa Rica to observe leafcutter ants, Salzburg during the Christmas season, Quebec City to visit a friend, the Grand Canyon and the Four Corners — wherever she could catch a ride. She was able to crochet any image she saw, and her work has blessed many of her friends. She was a ray of sunshine who brightened the lives of all around her.

The rosary vigil and the funeral service, held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Muenster, may be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/KC1459/videos.

Two scholarships have been established in Bailey’s memory. To donate, put “Bailey Walterscheid Memorial Scholarship” in the memo line and make out the check to Alumni and Supporters, Inc., P.O. Box 97, Muenster, TX 76252 for Sacred Heart Catholic School, or to Hardin-Simmons University, 2200 Hickory Street, HSU Box 16100, Abilene, TX 79698.

Thank you all for your continued love and support.

Bailey Walterscheid

Eulogy delivered by Dale Schilling, Bailey’s uncle

As long as anyone can remember, Bailey was an organizer.

When she was 2, she and her cousin Joshua organized her Pawpaw’s boxer shorts on the front porch and announced that they were for sale. Ultimately, though, she had only one buyer — Pawpaw who had to buy his boxers back.

At the age of 3 she started planning her own birthday parties — and each year she would start planning for her May 28 birthday well before Christmas, even before her brother had his birthday on December 5. That’s not to say that Tyler has always lived in his sister’s shadow, but more on that later.

Bailey went on a lot of trips, and if she was going on a trip, there was an itinerary. On a trip to the Grand Canyon to celebrate her high school graduation, one of the shows she had planned for had been cancelled, but because she had put it on the itinerary, Pawpaw sat and watched the empty stage for more than 15 minutes. Was it Bailey’s iron will, or did Pawpaw need a rest? Only he can tell us.

Bailey was fearless.

She would try anything, often dragging her brother Tyler along. When they were very small they got a chance to go to the circus, and she wrangled the two of them a chance to ride on one of the elephants.

On one occasion, Pawpaw and her cousin Joshua’s dad were supposed to be watching the kids while Fran and Rachel cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast. “Where is Bailey?” Rachel demanded when they’d finished. “Where’s Joshua?” Pawpaw looked up from his paper, and Mike looked up from his book. It was 30 degrees outside, and the kids were nowhere in the house. Eventually, they were found on the other side of a barbed-wire fence, down a hill and behind a clump of trees. They were walking hand-in-hand, Bailey pulling Joshua along, both of them in diapers, Bailey also wearing her cowgirl boots.

At the age of 4, when the Walterscheids were renovating their home, her parents found her on the roof in a pair of red rubber boots, a hammer in her hand, carefully knocking the stones from the old chimney.

Elaine and I had a second-hand cow dog that ran after Tyler once when he’d been trying to make friends with it. The 7-year-old Bailey, coming to her brother’s defense, tackled the dog and held it in a headlock, shouting, “Run, Tyler, run!”

Once when she was out working with Wade — Rhonda was at a D.A.R. meeting — he told her “Don’t touch that cactus.” Bailey watched her dad and as soon as he wasn’t looking, she had both hands in that cactus. Boy, did she bawl. Wade took her home and for two hours, he picked cactus needles out of her hands. “Are you going to listen to me the next time I tell you not to do something?” Wade asked her. “Yes, daddy,” she quavered. That Wade is a careful man in a lot of ways — Rhonda heard about this incident for the first time just yesterday.

Bailey and Tyler were my kids, really.

For a long time, I’d have Bailey’s family for Sunday dinner. Bailey used one of my good bowls to feed scraps to the dog. I caught her doing it and asked her what she thought she was doing. “What’s it going to hurt?” she responded. “It’s a glass bowl. We do it all the time at our house.” Maybe so, but I couldn’t see myself eating out of the bowl again, so I threw it away.

Once when she was very small, it fell to me to give her a bath. I won’t say I was squeamish about it, but afterwards, Elaine saw Bailey squirming on the couch and asked her what was wrong. The answer: “Dale didn’t clean my bobo.” Elaine took her back to the bathroom to care of that, whatever it was. No one ever did explain to me what a bobo is, but no one ever put me in charge of bath time again, either.

I told Bailey once that drinking sodas would impair her ability to play sports, and she hasn’t had one since.

Bailey was always very competitive.

When she and Tyler with both children, she regularly beat her brother at Mousetrap — honestly or otherwise. When one of these occasions degenerated into an argument, Elaine tried to mediate: “Who threw the first stone?” she asked. Tyler’s response: “I didn’t throw no rocks.”

Bailey liked to get Tyler to smell her feet, especially when they stunk. “Smell my feet,” she’d say. “They smell like roses.” Tyler didn’t believe her, but he always had to check to make sure.

Being a little taller than Tyler, she could see their dad’s truck coming before Tyler could. “I’ll bet you ten cents that Dad’s home,” she’d say. Tyler knew that her luck had to give out sometime, so he always took the bet … and always lost.

Her competitive spirit may have started out with her relationship with Tyler, but it didn’t end there. One of her classmates got a higher score than she did on a math paper in the second grade, and she never forgot it. More than 15 years later, she could tell you what he made and what she made. When she beat him on something, though, she took it in stride.

She was the 3-point shooter for the basketball team, and one summer Coach John set her a goal of making 3,000 3-point shots before school started. She marked off the distance around her basketball goal at home, and she set a weekly goal that would get her there. When the family went to Estes Park for their Mimi and Pawpaw’s 50th wedding anniversary, she kept at it. She failed to make allowances for the much higher altitude, though, and she passed out. Her cousin Jordan had to carry her back to the lodge, but when she came to, she walked back down to the court because she’d passed out before she made her daily goal. That was the year the Tigerettes won state, and Bailey set a personal record for 3-point shooting — 5 for 5 in one game.

She also ran track: She qualified in 5 events for the state track meet, helping the Tigerettes win the state championship.

Bailey accomplished a lot in 24 years.

Not just in athletics. She was salutatorian of her class at Sacred Heart. She graduated cum laude from Hardin-Simmons University. She got into Tufts University Dental School, one of the top dental schools in the country, performed well, and made a lot of friends.

Along the way, she enjoyed spinning and crocheting. She loved to work in Grandma Carrie’s garden. Each summer, she spent a week at Camp Walterscheid, having wiener roasts, Clear Creek walks and adventures.

Bailey’s faith was important to her.

It shaped her life and the lives of some of her friends. One has told us that she always pointed people toward Christ. Sometimes she pointed them to the Catholic Church specifically. One of her friends at Hardin-Simmons University was a Baptist missionary kid who grew up in Turkey. That friend may have already been on the road to Rome, but Bailey was part of that journey. Not only did that friend become a Catholic, she wrote a paper on the theology of the body that earned her one of the university’s top awards.

Bailey often went to weekday masses. St. Anthony was the saint she felt closest to, and she took joy in the privilege of attending the St. Anthony Shrine in Boston. Bailey was a devout Catholic who put her faith in the promises of God.