Ritual honors Gilcrease
Apache dancers pay respects to sanctuary, orchard founder
William Gilcrease got the goodbye he wanted.
About 40 Apache dancers filled a northwest valley chapel on Sunday for a roughly 25-minute performance. Groups of dancers took turns kneeling in front of his open casket.
They were there to honor his final wish and to pay their respects to the man who grew the gourds and bamboo used to create their instruments and adorn their ceremonial dress.
Gilcrease, founder of the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary and co-founder of a northwest valley pick-and-pay orchard, died Tuesday. He was 98.
“He brought life to everything that he touched,” one dancer told mourners before the Matachines dance troupe’s performance.
Gilcrease’s adopted son, Oscar, recalled his father asking at some point in his 90s that the dancers perform at his services.
On Sunday, their drums sent a thunderous boom that could be felt throughout the chapel. Dancers in red and white clothing shook gourds and bamboo sticks that Gilcrease grew.
Gilcrease was born in Reno in June 1919 and moved to Las Vegas with his family shortly after, longtime friend Lorraine Debusk said. He founded
GILCREASE
the sanctuary in 1970, and co-founded the orchard with his brother, Ted, seven years later.
Photographs of Gilcrease wearing overalls and standing next to animals cycled through a slideshow on television sets during the public viewing at the Palm Northwest Mortuary chapel.
Oscar Gilcrease remembered his father as a simple man who liked flowers and birds — especially quail.
William Gilcrease was interested in nature and growing things from a young age, Debusk said.
“He was a very shy man,” she said. “Very shy, but a big heart.”
Gilcrease loved nature and people, she said. He enjoyed science and liked to experiment with crossbreeding plants.
Robert Murray knew Gilcrease for 48 years. One day, he said, Gilcrease was making a bird habitat with his backhoe when he discovered mammoth bones. The bones he unearthed are on loan to UNLV, Debusk said.
Gilcrease became known in the northwest Las Vegas community as someone who would take in abandoned animals, Debusk told the Review-journal last week.
“He had all kinds of animals,” Murray said. “Birds from far and wide.”
Las Vegas magicians Siegfried and Roy got white peacocks from the sanctuary, Murray said.
The nonprofit sanctuary is home to more than 600 abandoned animals.
Gilcrease never worried if animals started picking at plants, Murray said. He had a simple response: “Just grow more.”
“It was just a different way of thinking,” Murray said.