PILCH, Audrey Faye

Today's News-Herald, Lake Havasu City, Arizona Published Wednesday, August 5, 2009 Audrey Faye Pilch, 75, of Millington, Tenn., passed away from this life, peacefully, on July 31, 2009. She was born in Water Valley, Miss., to Eva and Wesley Thompson and attended Jeff Davis High School, where she helped lead the women's basketball team to many victories. She met and married Franklin Dale Pilch Sr., of the U.S. Navy, in 1955, and became a devoted mother of two shortly after, and mother of three at age 45. During the early years of family life, the Pilch’s lived in the San Diego area and Okinawa, Japan, and moved back to Water Valley, in the 1970s. The family relocated to Lake Havasu City in the 1980s, where Faye cared for an ailing family member, and the couple settled in Millington, Tenn., in 2000. Faye developed lasting friendships in every city in which they lived. She was gifted with a loving soul, a charitable heart and a contagious smile. Faye is survived by her husband of 54 years, Frank Pilch; her son, F. Dale Pilch and daughter-in-law, Gail Pilch, of Oxford, Miss.; daughters, Pamela Mitchell, of Millington, Tenn., and Jennifer Hoeprich and son-in-law Paul Hoeprich, of Chandler; grandson, Joshua Mitchell, of Texas; grandson, Vaughn Hoeprich, of Arizona; sisters, Peggy Metcalf, of Bartlett, Tenn., and Inez Roten, of Selmer, Tenn.; brother, Richard Thompson, of Louisville, Ky.; and many close friends. A private service will be held in her honor. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation be made to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality. — Emily Dickinson