Wallace Legette Hall

Wallace Legette Hall passed peacefully from this world on Friday, March 4, 2016 surrounded by his loved ones, at the Clements University Hospital in Dallas. Eighty five years old, as sound of mind as ever, his body finally succumbed to a sudden illness, after bravely fighting a series of ailments over several years. Even at the end, the twinkle in his eye and his remarkable wit shone through, and he left his family with a few more "Wally stories" to share with his friends. Wally Hall was born on August 28, 1930 in Conway, Arkansas to Willis Legette Hall and Anna Maude Wallace Hall. His father moved the family to Little Rock in 1935, in the teeth of the Depression, to work on a New Deal program supporting farmers. For a time, he shared his small bedroom with his grandmother, who, despite suffering from tuberculosis, profoundly impressed him with her whispered stories of her childhood in the Post-Civil War South, the battles fought around their family farm, and his Scotch-Irish heritage. When he wasn't stirring up trouble with his gang of neighborhood friends (including many friends for life), he was reading adventure stories, or riding in the rumble seat of his father's car with his sister Helen, as his father crisscrossed the state doing field work. Wally was always good with numbers. As he moved into high school, it did not escape his attention that, where his paper route paid $4 per week, hosting the weekly craps game paid $150 per night. He went on to graduate from the University of Arkansas in 1952, where, in addition to his major in Accounting, his life was punctuated by the Sigma Chi fraternity, the Air Force ROTC, his fervent support of the Razorbacks football team, a series of summer jobs that included stuffing DDT into 50-pound sacks and making popsicles, and his single elective in four years, a course in investing that forever hooked him on the stock market. As a freshly commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force in July 1952, Wally was off to do his part in the Korean War. As luck would have it, his familiarity with accounting landed him a spot in the freshly-minted Auditor General branch, where his orders ultimately shipped him, not to Korea, but to Europe, where the young Second Lieutenant audited Officers' Clubs, NCO Clubs, base chaplains, the Strategic Jet Fuel Inventory, and the like. In addition to acquiring an intimate knowledge of all aspects, financial and otherwise, of Officer's Clubs in Germany and England, Wally was once assigned, during a Cold War Red Alert, to carry the trigger to an atomic bomb in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. (Now that's a scary prospect.) After his stint in the military ended, Wally arrived back in Little Rock in his brand new two-tone blue Chevrolet to begin his professional life. He passionately hated his first two jobs, and accounting, but thrilled his father when he earned his CPA and landed a job with IBM, then the most prestigious company in the country. His boy was finally on his feet. But, two weeks into his training program, Wally was already gagged by the IBM corporate culture and looking for something new. He followed his instincts to Wall Street, landed a job at Francis I. DuPont, and became a stockbroker. His father gave up after that. In time, Wally would forge a career in the brokerage business that would have made his parents proud, had they lived long enough to see it fully unfold. He was ideally suited to the business. He was gregarious. He loved the action of the market. He read financial statements. He had tremendous trading instincts and understood risk. He could get creative. He could sell. After training in New York City, F.I. DuPont sent him (and his bride -- more on that later) to Dallas to build his book of business on commissions. Starting in 1957, he steadily built his business to the point where, on the back of a big hit with Chrysler stock in 1962, he and several of his buddies launched their own firm: Weber, Hall, Cobb & Caudle, Inc. Over the next three decades, Wally and his partners built their firm, later renamed Weber, Hall, Sale & Associates, into one of the largest and most successful broker dealers in the Southwest at the time, with offices in Dallas and New York. Carefully managed and entrepreneurial, Weber Hall was profitable every year, and survived several stock market disasters that took down many of its competitors, including F.I. DuPont. It was quite a ride, and it was a lot of fun, as anyone who worked there can attest. As lucky as Wally was in business, he was even luckier in love. He met and fell in love with Sydney Frances Houston of Memphis, Tennessee, in New York City in 1956. They wed in Memphis on July 27, 1957 and settled down in Dallas, where they enjoyed a wonderful 53-year marriage, raised three children (who gave them ten grandchildren, with Wally changing nary a diaper in either generation), and made a multitude of lifelong friends, until Sydney succumbed to cancer in 2010. Wally's heartbreak, while traumatic and enduring, did not diminish his passion for living, and soon he fell in love and wed again, to Gail Orand Ewing, in Dallas on January 5, 2013. They loved dining with friends, entertaining both of their families, and spending time in Pebble Beach. As Wally's health declined, they also spent a lot of time visiting doctors and hospitals, where Wally would invariably make some comment that would leave everyone, most particularly the nurses, in stitches. Their marriage was intensely happy and they found immense joy simply by being in each other's company. They were best friends. Wally was fortunate to be lucky in love not once, but twice. Wally's curiosity was insatiable. He read and travelled the world extensively, delighting in discovering for himself, with friends and family, the wonders of the world, its peoples, cultures and history, its wildlife and beautiful places. He took each of his children on trips around the globe so they could experience for themselves some of what the world had to offer. Once his grandchildren were old enough, he took the entire family, all 17, on summer trips to Italy, Spain, and Scotland, so his grandchildren could also begin to broaden their horizons. He loved to hike in the mountains, and enjoyed many hiking trips with friends in the Western U.S. and Europe. His favorite place in the world was his ranch in the South San Juan Mountains of Colorado, near Pagosa Springs. He loved walking the trails on the ranch and in the surrounding mountains, waiting for the elk to creep out of the forest into the pasture at twilight, and sitting on the ranch house porch while a thunderstorm raged down the valley. He loved his friends, most of the dinner parties, and all of the lunches at Brook Hollow Golf Club and the Dallas Country Club. He loved animals and wild spaces, and gave generously to support the welfare of both. Most of all, he loved his family. He was intensely interested in every aspect of his children, grandchildren, stepchildren and step grandchildrens lives and was always ready to offer up a pithy comment that was invariably both funny and instructional at the same time. Wally was the kind of person who could enter an elevator full of strangers on the first floor, break the awkward silence with a spur-of-the-moment out-of-the-box witticism, tweak, complement or observation, and exit on the 18th floor with new friends, all smiling. He was tenderhearted, generous and kind. He didn't have a mean bone in his body. He was unforgettable and he will be desperately missed. Wally Hall is survived by his wife, Gail Ewing Hall, of Dallas; his children: George Houston Hall and Michelle De Necochea Hall, Wallace Legette Hall, Jr and Kristi White Hall, and Sydney Ann Hall, all of Dallas; his grandchildren: Madeleine De Necochea Hall, Haley Michelle Hall, Francesca Anne Hall, Gabriella Houston Hall, Wallace Legette Hall III, Avery Elizabeth Hall, Kellam Alexander Hall, William Houston Hall, Sydney Francina Jordaan, and Jakobus Richter Jordaan, all of Dallas; his stepchildren: James Orand Ewing, of College Station, Texas, Samuel Finley Ewing lll and Beth Van Winkle Ewing, of Dallas, and Frances Ewing Rowland and Stephen Allen Rowland, of Westport, CT; and his step grandchildren: Samuel Finley Ewing lV, Charles Bradley Ewing, and Gail Van Winkle Ewing, all of Dallas, and Sally Orand Rowland, Charlotte Ewing Rowland, and Stephen Allen Rowland Jr., all of Westport, Connecticut; and his nieces and nephew Fran Willms, Kay Flippo and David Willms. He was predeceased by his wife, Sydney Houston Hall, his sister, Helen Hall Willms, and his parents, Willis Legette Hall and Anna Maude Wallace Hall. A memorial service will be held in his honor on Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 4:00 pm at Highland Park Presbyterian Church, 3821 University Boulevard, with a reception to follow at Brook Hollow Golf Club. In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate donations be made in his name to an organization close to Wally's heart, the SPCA of Texas.