Westley Franklin Potts

Westley Franklin Potts Military graveside services will be held for Westley at 10 a.m. on Saturday, September 30 at the Cedar Grove Cemetery. Westley Franklin Potts age 86, long time Mancos rancher, lumberman, trapper, and miner passed away peacefully at his home in Weber Canyon on Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 following a brief illness. His special friend Loretta Hall of Mancos, his son James, and his sister-in-law Berniece were with him. Westley was born on April 21, 1920 in Walsenburg Colorado to Charles Calvin Potts and Zelle Louise Groomer Potts. He graduated from Mancos High school in the spring of 1938 joined the U.S. Navy that fall. Boatswain’s Mate Second Class Potts was the gun captain for the number three 14 inch gun in the number four turret on the Battleship USS Oklahoma when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Westley was a life member of the John Derrick Halls Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 5231 and was active in community efforts to restore the old Mancos Opera House. He was preceded in death by his parents, Charlie and Zelle Potts, his wife of 59 years Lena Annette DeFelice, daughter-in-law Margaret Walker Potts of Deatsville, Alabama, and a brother William Groomer Potts who had returned to Mancos after hurricane Katrina destroyed his home in Slidell Louisiana. Westley is survived by his sister Nadine Charlotte Ferris of Centennial, Colorado, sister in-law Berniece Curtis Potts of Mancos, sons Charles Franklin Potts of Deatsville, Alabama, James Westley Potts of Mancos, and daughters-in-law Bettye Jo McDaniel Potts of Deatsville Alabama and Carol McCarty Potts of Mancos. Westley had three grandchildren. The eldest, Elizabeth Annette Potts, is married to Thomas James Whitman of Millbrook Alabama. The two younger grandchildren are John Westley and Lora Ann Potts both of Mancos. In addition, Westley had two great- grandchildren, Mary Katherine Dorough and Annamarie Paige Whitman both of Millbrook, Alabama. A memorial service by the Mancos VFW post being planned for the latter part of September.