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(July 24, 1939 - Aug. 24, 2010)William Wiley Layne died Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010, at North Big Horn Hospital in Lovell.
He was born July 24, 1939, in Palmer, Grundy County, Tenn., the second of eight children born to William McKinley and Rosa Lee Robertson Layne, two girls and six boys.
Wiley attended school in Tennessee where his father worked in the coal mines. Wiley started working at a very young age to help support the family, building props for the coal mines. He worked mowing lawns and doing odd jobs at the old Lovell Hospital. He also did farm and ranch work, performing maintenance work on the tractors and other farm equipment and helping to put up hay.
The family moved again in approximately 1956, this time to California, where Wiley, his father and sister Millie worked in a fruit packing plant. At 17, Wiley was under age and working double shifts, so the place they were working at got in trouble because of child labor laws. They must have liked him because they told him to keep on working, and they would just pay the daily fines that resulted. The family lived in California about a year before moving back to Lovell.
Wiley went to work for the Town of Lovell, mowing lawns, working with sewers and pouring cement. He helped pour sidewalks and other things including the cement around the old A&W and around the area of Mayes Brothers Body Shop.
Wiley worked with Von Zeller and others extracting honey for Bill Zeller and later for Sterling Johnson. He went to work for the Big Horn Co-op where he became well acquainted with all the farmers and gardeners around the area. They knew they could trust him with the crops they took there to sell. He worked with his father, Bill Layne.
Wiley happened to run into Carol Delores Edgar in Powell one evening, as kids seem to do. She was from Powell and continuing her education at Northwest Community College. He married her about three months later, on April 18, 1963 in Powell. She was barely 19 and he was 22. They lived in Carol's parents' basement until Carol completed the school year, then moved to Lovell.
Wiley retired 34 years later. He and Carol then purchased the Scoop. Wiley enjoyed the eight years he spent at the Scoop. He loved visiting with people and that was a great place to do it.
Wiley was preceded in death by his parents, Bill and Rosa Lee Layne; his son, Ronald Joe Layne; his father-in-law, Joe Edgar; and brother-in-law Paul Sironen.
Wiley is survived by his wife, Carol; sisters Lois Layne of Lovell and Mildred Lee Bate and husband Bob of Harbor, Ore.; brothers, Earl Layne and wife Mary of Brookings, Ore., Jack Layne and wife Roz of Central Point, Ore., Melvin Lee Layne and wife Marwyn of Lovell, Johnnie Ray Layne and friend Carolyn Osborne of Whitefish, Mont. and Alton Layne and wife Pat of Cheyenne; mother-in-law Doris Edgar; sister-in-law Sue Sironen and numerous nieces and nephews.
Funeral services were held Friday, Aug. 27, at the Lovell LDS Chapel. Burial followed in the Lovell Cemetery. Haskell Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
