Retired attorney loved family, Astros and his ’66 Mustang
JOHN SELLINGSLOH
Retired attorney John Sellingsloh remembered more history at the age of 97 than some people ever learn in school.
Descended from Texas settlers, he grew up across the street from Sam Houston Park, at Lamar and Bagby streets. His father had driven a stagecoach for Wells Fargo as a young man. Sellingsloh was in the first four-year class at Lamar High School. World War II called him to Europe before he finished at Rice University and graduated first in his class from the University of Texas School of Law.
Sellingsloh built his career at Baker Botts, where he led the Oil, Gas and Real Estate Department for years and was beloved as the firm’s oldest living partner. He was exceptionally humble but had a commanding presence, said his son, Robert Sellingsloh. “He was profound but slipped in subtle humor when you least expected it.”
The 1966 Ford Mustang that Sellingsloh bought new also felt like a paradox to his family. For decades he cut a familiar profile on Memorial Drive behind the wheel of the light blue car, sporty but dignified in a suit and a classic fedora. The Mustang was still parked in his garage when he died. Sellingsloh’s affection for the Astros lasted a lifetime, too. He bought his first season tickets in 1965 and followed every game even after he could no longer attend in person. He loved the strategy and statistics.
Life brought him three wonderfully outgoing wives, along with great losses and rebounds. Dorothy Jean Dayton, his high school sweetheart and the mother of his three children, died in 1974. The next year Sellingsloh married Martha Palmer Wallace, who died in 1983. He married JoAnn Bering Bailey, who survives him, in 1984. His joys multiplied as the family grew, with Wallace’s two children and Bailey’s six giving him 30 grandchildren and 51 great-grandchildren. During gatherings in Galveston and Horseshoe Bay, he oversaw friendly but competitive golf tournaments, water sports and cookouts.
Sellingsloh contracted COVID-19 in early April at home in Houston.
“Being from the Greatest Generation, he never complained. Just hours before he was taken to the hospital, he told us he felt great,” his son said. “That’s the type of man he was.”
Bailey also contracted the virus but survived, although it claimed another family member far away. Sellingsloh’s niece, Marian K. Sellingsloh, the daughter of a cousin who had been his best friend during childhood, died of COVID-19 in upstate New York the same day as he did, April 16.