Funeral services for Margie “Sissy” Flippin, age 93, of Brownwood, will be held at 10:00 AM, Friday, February 9, 2024, in the Heartland Funeral Home Chapel with Bill Slaymaker officiating. Burial will follow in the Pioneer Cemetery in Eastland County. The family will receive friends at the funeral home on Thursday evening from 6:00 until 8:00.
Sissy passed from this life on Monday, February 5, 2024, in Brownwood.
Margie Alyne Willen was born on July 17, 1930, the first of five children, to Roy C. and Jewel Willen in Lillydale, Tennessee. When the second child came along, William Joseph (Bill) Willen, he started calling her Sissy and that name has stuck for more than 93 years. Another son, James Robert “Jim” entered the family and shortly thereafter the family moved to Texas in 1939, when Sissy was nine years old. Two more daughters, Wanda Fay and Ernestine, were born in Texas, making the Willens a family of seven. Because of family finances, Sissy quit school at the age of 13 and then went to work as a waitress in a small café near the Brownwood railroad depot. Working in restaurants became her calling, which she did most of her life
In 1972, Sissy and her husband M.L. “Dude” Monk bought the old Yellow Wagon Café and renamed it Sissy’s Red Wagon. In 1974, the current building was constructed, and as they say, the rest is history. Sissy sold the Wagon in 2009.
Sissy loved to travel, shop, go fishing, attend rodeos, and baseball games. She was a fighter and had been battling breast cancer for the last five years. Sissy was a member of Shiloh Bible Church in Richland Springs.
Sissy was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Earnestine, her brother Jim Willen, four husbands, M.L. “Dude” Monk, Dearl Cotton, Carrol Blevins and E.J. “Flip” Flippin; a sister-in-law, Charlene Willen, and a brother-in-law Travis Gunter.
Sissy is survived by a brother, Bill Willen of Terrence, Michigan, her sister and caregiver, Fay Gunter, many nieces and nephews, a host of great friends, and children Tan Flippin and wife Janet, Tye Flippin and wife Chelsey, Tamera and Justin Alexander; grandchildren, Erin and Aaron King, Drew Flippin, Mason Flippin, Grayson Dempsey, Jaci Alexander, Jaden Alexander, and two great-grandchildren.
The family requests that memorials be made a favorite charity in memory of Sissy.
Condolences, memories, and tributes can be offered to the family online at heartlandfuneralhome.com
