01-04-03: A gentle lady passes

01-04-03: A gentle lady passes

Daily Standard employee Gladys Gray dies at age 82

By BETTY LAWRENCE
The Daily Standard

    Long-time Daily Standard employee Gladys Gray, 82, died Thursday at Community Hospital in Coldwater, following a lengthy illness.
    Everyone knew her as Glady, the little woman who worked at the front counter of The Daily Standard newspaper in Celina for nearly 40 years.
    She always had a ready smile for customers and her co-workers and took great pride in knowing the customers personally. Gray once told a co-worker that she thought customers appreciated it when she took the time to ask about their families and how they were doing.
    In 1994, Gray moved from the front counter at the newspaper to a nearby desk due to her failing health. At her new desk, she would still greet customers and write a weekly historical piece that appeared in Saturday's edition of The Daily Standard.
    Gray, who was wheelchair-bound the last few years, was insistent on going to work every day. Even after being admitted to the hospital or local nursing home due to illness, she would return to work as soon as she felt better. Her work was her life, Gray always said.
    Customers would come in the office, looking for that tiny woman with the ready smile, huge brown eyes, long dark hair and slipper shoes. They were her trademarks.
    She turned up her nose at electric typewriters and computers. The distinctive "click click" of the manual typewriter could always be heard coming from Gray's desk. That old typewriter too was her trademark.
    For the past year Gray had been homebound, but she never gave up on her desire to get well and return to the newspaper office.
    Her final article appeared in The Daily Standard in November. It talked about her long-time friend, Jim Wasson of Celina, who has played the part of Santa Claus at various functions for the last 40 years.
    Wasson often stopped in The Daily Standard to visit Gray and had stopped in to see her at Coldwater hospital the day before she died.
    "She was a special lady who always had a smile and in good humor. She cared about people and was just a very special lady. I will miss her and am proud to have known her. She was one of a kind," Wasson said.
    Celina realtor Owen Hall said he has known Gray for at least 50 years, when she worked as a young woman at the former Stubbs & Havel Insurance Agency in Celina.
    "I knew Glady at the business level and she always appeared to be a loyal and dedicated employee and caring, loving and understanding person. She has always been well respected," he added.
    Gray's first day of work at The Daily Standard was Jan. 3, 1956. She was hired by the late Parker Snyder, publisher of the newspaper. Her first duties included working as Snyder's secretary. She also covered local school drama productions.
    In a memoir piece written by Gray several years ago for a co-worker, the very private lady let readers into her private life through her words.
    Her unfilled dream, she wrote, was "to be an actress on Broadway."
    She attended Immaculate Conception elementary and high school, and "being a shy student, the nuns chose me for roles in their yearly plays to help me gain confidence," she wrote.
    "I also was always placed in a classroom with an advanced grade, such as first with half of the second," she also wrote.
    After graduation, Gray taught physical education at IC one year and then began working in the office of a local plumber. In 1940 she was hired to work for the Stubbs Insurance Agency and in 1956 began working at The Daily Standard.
    As a young woman, Gray played on the city of Celina's softball team and as a third baseman for the Mercer County All-Stars. She also was a member of the former Northshore Players, performing in theater productions for three summers.
    She has always been an avid reader, she said, and often wrote and mailed short stories to various magazines for publication. She also loved to write cards to shut-ins and lonely people.
    Gray was a life-long resident at 310 Beaver Street in Celina. She never married and along with working at The Daily Standard, cared for her father after the death of her mother.
    A full obituary appears on page 3 of today's newspaper.

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