Luck happens.

Life is what you make of it.

Warren Chadwick grabbed luck - good, bad and hard - by the horns to wrangle a half-dozen careers, a family and a legacy from military service, ranching, business, fun, dancing and beating the pants off anyone foolish enough to challenge him in a card game.

So after he died peacefully in his sleep on Sept. 25, his family and friends rallied for his last wish: throw their patriarch-hero one heck of a party at the observation deck of the Natrona County International Airport.

"Some said he was a lucky man," the Rev. Chris Limmer said during the eulogy. "I believe he was a very blessed man."

The subsequent stories of Pearl Harbor, pinochle, ranching, romance and rodeo painted Chadwick's luck and life as Wyoming mythology made real.

Warren Chadwick entered the world on May 8, 1921, in Plevna, Mont. The family of five children eventually settled in the oil metropolis of Midwest, where Chadwick graduated from high school in 1940.

He joined the Army Air Corps and shipped out to Australia with a brief stop in Hawaii. His ship left Pearl Harbor less than two days before Dec. 7, 1941.

During World War II, he worked as a turret gunner and bombardier on B-17 and B-24 bombers, usually flying from bases in India and Australia. Sometimes he flew home without some of his crew and other planes. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for successfully completing more than 50 missions.

On what was to be his last day before leaving for home, he partied way too much and missed his flight, his family said. That led to a serious chewing out by his buddy who had family waiting. When the two arrived at the air field, they learned their plane had crashed on take-off, killing all on board.

After the war, he moved to Hole in the Wall, worked at the Bar C, and broke horses that had gone wild while ranch hands were overseas.

Chadwick also worked for the Post Office and met the love of his life, Laurel Tillman, while delivering the mail in the rain near Barnum.

Mr. Tillman didn't approve of Chadwick, and he unsuccessfully enlisted Laurel's brother Cleo to try to put a stop to the romance at a community event in Barnum.

"When they looked at each other, I knew dad lost," Cleo Tillman said. "They looked like they were looking at heaven."

To give heaven a head start, the couple eloped.

While Chadwick's luck held in war and romance, it faltered with ranching.

As he started his own operation, the cattle market fell and he sold the herd. But the truck carrying the cattle crashed on the way to market, killing most of them.

Warren had no insurance.

Likewise, he bought a good stud horse.

Lightning killed it 60 days later.

Food was hard to come by, so Chadwick would hunt.

"He'd get a turkey; that's what we'd eat for a week," his second-oldest son Forrest said. "We kids didn't realize how tough it was for him."

Chadwick had to find other work to support the family with four children.

"When he did get out of livestock, he had a huge debt," Forrest said. "He paid it off to the last penny."

The family moved to Kaycee and Chadwick opened an office with Midwest Life, he said. "He quickly became known as the 'Cowboy insurance salesman.'"

In 1956, the Chadwicks moved to Casper where he pursued insurance and real estate businesses, and bought a ranch near the Natrona-Converse county line south of the Old Glenrock Highway.

In 1962, Chadwick and two other men with the help of the American Legion started the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association.

The family built an arena in 1970 and hosted annual roping events.

Glen Taylor bought the Chadwick ranch and recalled Chadwick telling him, "If I had a dollar for every person who said 'I learned how to rope there,' I wouldn't have to make a living."

Meanwhile, the four children - Jody, Val, Forrest and Rene - were growing up.

"We knew our dad was different, but we really didn't realize that until college," Val Lathrop said.

Chadwick taught his children the joys of hunting, the duty of hard work such as caring for a calf when it was 30 below zero, and not to whine, she said.

He also taught other lessons, Val's husband Kent Lathrop said.

"He taught me the evils of gambling," he said. "He always cleaned my clock."

Chadwick's son-in-law Tom Allemand recalled his father-in-law possessing toughness, structure and discipline, he said. "But it was wrapped in purpose and intelligence."

Chadwick blended gentleness, strength, trust and a robust sense of humor, Allemand said. "He was as tough as any person I've ever known, with no bravado."

That held up in the hard times, too. Eldest son Jody died in September 1996 partly as a result of lung damage fighting a fire in 1970. Laurel died in April 2006.

Through it all, the family refined luck and life to make a better world for themselves and Wyoming, Rene said. "We all grew up thinking there was never a question in our minds that we could do something," she said.

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at Tom.Morton@casperstartribune.net.