Note: Might be this Wilkie Conner (1918-1998). There is a brief obituary in a letter published in "Challanger No 10", available on fanac.org here: https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Challenger/Challenger10.pdf. This was published in Autumn of 1999, which is a year later than the death date shown at Find a Grave. According to the Challenger letter, he worked at the "textile mills in Gastonia" North Carolina, and Find a Grave shows the gravesite to be in Gastonia, North Carolina. As such, we should accept the Find a Grave data.