The pastor of a Newnan church that now has a Sunday attendance of 2,300 recalls starting with 14 worshippers a dozen years ago at Al Wise’s Catfish Hollow in Sharpsburg.
“Starting a church in a catfish restaurant, we used to tease people that we were going to do Communion with sweet tea and hush puppies,” said the Rev. Jeff Chandler, senior pastor of Southcrest Church.
But without Mr. Wise, the Rev. Chandler said, “There would not be a Southcrest. ... He was a tremendous encourager to me. I was nervous and scared, and he’s the one who spoke to me and encouraged me to step out and really do it.”
Hillery Alton “Al” Wise Jr., 64, of Tyrone died Tuesday in Southern Crescent Hospital for Specialty Care, Riverdale, of complications from an infection due to an accident. A funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday in Southcrest Church. Parrott Funeral Home and Crematory is handling arrangements.
“One of the things Al was gracious about was loving people everyone else had given up on,” the Rev. Chandler said. “He would come alongside those people who had absolutely messed their lives up, and he would get in the trenches with them and love them and encourage them until they were standing on their feet again. That room on Saturday will be filled with hundreds of those people.”
Matt Ousley of Newnan, who married Mr. Wise’s daughter, Marceil, said his father-in-law "was a genuine, loving man, and he impacted every person he met.”
“My father died when I was 12, and my wife and I were high school sweethearts,” Mr. Ousley said. Mr. Wise, he said, “took me and treated me as one of his own.”
Mr. Wise was born into a restaurant family. His father, Hillery Sr., started Fresh Air Bar-B-Que in Jackson in 1929; his mother, Annie Lois Wise, worked in a local cotton mill. Mr. Wise’s younger brother Kenneth went on to own the Lighthouse Restaurant in Milner.
“His favorite meal he always wanted me to make was fried rabbit, biscuits and gravy, and turtle soup,” said Robert A. Wise of Newnan, Mr. Wise’s son and current operator of Golden's on the Square Restaurant in Newnan. “They actually used to catch the rabbits and the turtles and make the biscuits from scratch, and that’s where he started his cooking.”
Mr. Wise worked in his father’s Jackson eatery “until he graduated from high school and told his father he wanted nothing to do with the restaurant business,” the son said.
Mr. Wise attended the University of Georgia at Athens, graduating with a degree in finance, and he pursued a career as a credit manager with ITT and The Associates. He moved his family across the country until 1986, “when he was tired of all that and we opened Catfish Hollow in Tyrone,” said his wife of 37 years, Maridee Raye Wensel Wise.
The Wises eventually moved Catfish Hollow to Sharpsburg, and in 1996 they bought Golden’s. Mr. Wise also served in the Marine Reserve.
“My husband would say Catfish Hollow was known for the best catfish, coleslaw and hush puppies,” Mrs. Wise said. Golden’s won the award “Best Meat and Three in the South” in 2000 from Southern Living magazine.
But the most important thing about Mr. Wise “was his love for the Lord,” she said.
“People loved him. He saved marriages, he saved lives, he saved everything, and that’s just who he was,” Mrs. Wise said. “He had the hugest heart for kids. He told me someday he would have a day care in heaven. I just didn’t think it would be now.”
In addition to his wife, son and daughter, Mr. Wise is survived by three grandchildren and numerous adopted grandchildren.
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