Aileen Vanderhider Vilim, loving wife, mother, and grandmother, passed away on Monday, December 11, 2017. The daughter of Charles and Amelia Vanderhider, Aileen was born on March 27, 1926 in San Antonio, Texas, lived on Probandt Street and was baptized at St. Henry's Church. For more than 91 years, Aileen lived her life with faith and grace. She was kind, generous, patient, and humble. Aileen was married to Herbert Vilim for 52 years before Herb's passing in 2003.

Aileen was a descendent of James Ryan of Ireland, who came to Texas in 1835 (marrying Matilda Howard) and participated in the Texas Revolution, which made Aileen an official daughter of the Republic of Texas. At age three, she, with her parents and brother Charlie, moved to a dairy farm in Rosenberg, Texas. In her Rosenberg high school, it was clear that she was moving from farm girl to business woman: she participated in the math club, dramatics club, dancing club, press club, one-act play, was class president, class program chairman, class reporter and social editor of the high school newspaper. She returned to San Antonio at age 16 to attend Our Lady of the Lake College. After a year, she had to take a break to earn additional tuition. She became a legal secretary for five years to one of the first female lawyers in Texas, Kathleen Lindsey. She returned to Our Lady of the Lake in San Antonio in 1948, graduating in 1950 with a BS degree in Business.

From 1950-58 she worked for the Armed Forces Security Service (now the NSA) where she had top national security clearance in Air Force Security as a cryptologist who decoded intercepted foreign messages (though she wouldn't either confirm or deny it!). After raising her children, she returned to work in 1971 at USAA as a sales and service training specialist. During her years at USAA, she completed the 5-year professional designation CPCU, an advanced degree in insurance and underwriting. In addition, she honed her public speaking skills as a 15-year member and past president of the Regional Rio Grande chapter of the public speaking club Toastmaster International. In 1984, her outstanding public and improvisational speeches resulted in her participating in the international Toastmasters competition in Sydney, Australia.

She met her husband, Herb, at a CYO dance at Incarnate Word College. Aileen was working behind the ticket booth when the president of the CYO introduced Herb to Aileen, and Herb persuaded her to leave her post behind the registration table to join him in a dance to last a lifetime! They married in 1951 at St. Gerard's Church in San Antonio.

The Vilim family belonged to the St. Paul's Catholic Church community from 1960-2008. Aileen was a lector and member of the Altar Society for many decades. After Herb's death, Aileen moved to Helotes and joined the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church community, where she attended daily Mass and participated in church life and fellowship. She was a 60-year member of the Sultanas de Bejar Catholic Women's Organization and was the Grand Sultana from 1994-95. From the 1960s-90s, she and Herb were members of the Holy Family Guild under the spiritual direction of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, where they supported many charities and organizations through corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Aileen was chosen by Archbishop Flores of San Antonio to serve on the Archbishop Women's Commission from 1994-96. She joined St. Monica's Guild in 1996 where she exercised her faith through fellowship and the works of mercy for more than 20 years. Since 1999, she was a member of the San Antonio chapter of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem which supports evangelization efforts in the Holy Land as well as works of mercy through support of local charities. She frequently attended retreats and participated in social outreach through the Congregation of Divine Providence, Our Lady of the Lake University, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Oblate School of Theology, and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Helotes. She was a long-time member of both the Oblate Associates and the CDP Associates.

As an alumna of Our Lady of the Lake University, she supported her alma mater for 70 years. She was active in the Alumni Association with recruitment and fundraising and had been a 50-year member of the Kappa Sigma Phi Sorority at OLLU. She served as president of the Our Lady of the Lake University Alumni Association from 1974-75 as well as a member of the Our Lady of the Lake University Board of Trustees. For her dedication and service to the university over the previous decades, she was awarded the Outstanding Alumna to the Alma Mater Award in 1977 by Our Lady of the Lake University. In 1978, she was part of a group of alumni to encourage her alma mater OLLU to start an MBA weekend college for full-time employees (the first one in Texas – at the time, quite an innovation, most universities have one now) and promised if the university would start it, she'd sign up! She kept her word and signed up for the MBA weekend college and graduated with an MBA in 1985 while working full time and raising seven children. Accomplishing this showed her immense love for her alma mater as well as for learning, for she actually retired the following year in 1986.

Having learned the tenets of her faith from the example of her father and mother, Aileen herself radiated those same qualities of faith that she learned from her parents, namely, that because life is a gift from God, one in turn offers oneself as a gift to others. And that is what Aileen did all her life. According to Sr. Elaine Gentemann, CDP, Aileen's motto was "give, give, give; always doing all of the work behind the scenes and never taking the credit." Her favorite hobbies were reading, gardening, bridge, ballroom dancing and trading stocks online.

A faithful mother, Aileen accompanied her seven children to ballet, violin, and piano lessons, attended their baseball, basketball and soccer matches. She sewed their costumes and helped them with their speeches and their homework. She baked so many cakes for so many birthdays! She was a homeroom mother and PTA member for over a dozen years at St. Martin Hall where her children attended elementary school, and often a class sponsor. During all this time, she managed the family budget and organized her children's schedules. According to her children, the greatest thing she did for them (with Herb) was open an ice cream booth with four other families during the six-month long 1968 World's Fair in San Antonio called HemisFair 1968.

Aileen traveled extensively throughout her life and would regale friends and family with stories from the Holy Land, Italy, Vatican City, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Mexico, France, Canada, Australia, and the Czech Republic, as well as various localities in the US. She was always seeking to deeper her understanding of other cultures as well as her faith. Her favorite city was Paris. Her final travels took her to Santa Barbara, California and Cancun, where she marveled at the beauty of the ocean and made pilgrimages to the missions.

Aileen will be remembered with love, and her generous and faithful spirit will live on through all who were blessed to know her.

She is survived by her children Kathleen Vilim DaGroomes, Jeanne Vilim Laney and her husband Tom, Michael Vilim, Mary Ann Vilim Baker, Margaret Vilim, Loretta Vilim, and Patrick Vilim, and her two granddaughters, Jacqueline Artis and fiancé Josh Tuten and Ashley Artis Schmidt and husband Tommy, as well as many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her husband, Herb, and her two sons-in-law, Thomas DaGroomes and Jeff Baker.

Funeral Services

Monday, December 18, 2017

Visitation at the Angelus Chapel

from 2:00pm to 4:00pm

and 6:00pm at

Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church

Helotes, Texas

Vigil Services with Rosary to be held at

7:00pm also at church

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Visitation at 9:00am at

Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church

Helotes, Texas

Funeral Mass to be offered at 10:00am

followed by luncheon in the church hall

Interment will follow at 1:30pm at

Holy Cross Cemetery

In lieu of flowers, you may wish to make a memorial contribution to

the Sisters of Divine Providence,

515 S.W. 24th Street, San Antonio, TX 78207-4619

or www.cdptexas.org/donate.