John B. Carey, Jr.

John B. Carey, Jr. was born on February 20, 1938, in Huron, South Dakota to John B. Carey and Edna Carey, and passed away on September 1, 2025, in Harlingen, Texas.

After living in Cheyenne, Wyoming for a short time, the family moved to Harlingen, Texas in 1942, where his father worked in a sheet metal fabrication shop. The summer following the completion of first grade, Johnny’s father was drafted into the Navy and stationed in Norman, Oklahoma. The war ended and the family moved back to Harlingen, Texas.

Johnny then entered second grade mid-year at Sam Houston Elementary School. He attended Colonial Acres School in fifth and sixth grades, Gay Junior High in seventh through ninth grades, and then to Harlingen High School, where he graduated. While in high school, his favorite classes were algebra, metal shop and D.O. He was in the band and played the tenor saxophone. In his junior and senior years of high school, he went to class in the mornings and then to work in the afternoons at Carey Sheet Metal Shop, a family business that his father had started in 1948. Two projects that stood out to him were welding a new bottom in a steel boat and building a large metal cistern tank to collect rainwater.

In 1970, his father retired, and he took over the day-to-day operation of Carey Sheet Metal Shop. He worked in the family business for 60 years.

He married Jimmie Summers shortly after graduation in 1956. They had a son, John B. Carey III, and a daughter, Leslie June Carey. They divorced in 1964.

After being single for ten years, he married Phyllis Frakes in 1974, and they remained married until her death in January of 2024. He and Phyllis met at a liquidation sale; they were both trying to purchase the same items.

In 1981, Johnny and Phyllis began building their home in Port Isabel. By “building their home”, they literally did most of the framing and finishing work themselves. They worked on it after hours, on weekends and holidays and finished in 1986. They got exactly what they wanted, but it was a LOT OF WORK.

He was a founding member of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Sail and Power Squadron and remained a member for over 50 years. At the time his death, he served as the treasurer.

He was an outdoor enthusiast and enjoyed hunting deer, feral hogs, and wild turkeys, but his passion was offshore fishing for blue marlin, white marlin and yellow fin tuna in the now Gulf of America.

Johnny was preceded in death by his wife, Phyllis; his parents, his brother Robert Carey, and his sister, Ree Lyons.

Johnny is survived by son, Johnny III (Pam) and daughter, Leslie Roripaugh; three grandchildren: Adam Carey (Marissa), Laura Smith (Ross), and Andy Carey (Sarah); and seven great grandchildren; Phyllis’ sons Michael Frakes (Linda) and Dennis Frakes, as well as their children and grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

Funeral services will be held on Friday, September 5, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. at Buck Ashcraft San Benito Funeral Home with family present at 1:00 p.m. Private interment will follow at Restlawn Memorial Park in La Feria.

Honored to serve as pallbearers are Adam Carey, Andy Carey, Ross Smith, and Daniel Bryant.