My Friend Gladys

I don't ever remember meeting Gladys, I feel like I have known her my 20 or so years in Arkansas. I really got to know Gladys in the last 10 years working in the kitchen at church. Then the kitchen crew consisted of Gladys, her daughter, Barbara, KimT and me and my family.

Gladys loved to cook and her chicken and dumplings have no equal in my mind. People loved her rum cakes but my favorite was her cheese ball. She also loved to sew. The work she and her husband did was to upholster furniture. Once she even brought a chair up to church one Wednesday to show us how. Gladys was sharp and loved to laugh. They was no story you could not tell her. We loved giving and getting her birthday cards because the funnier the better was her motto. Once someone joined our birthday lunch for Gladys that didn't know her that well. As we were passing around her birthday cards, said new person blushed at one card, Gladys just roared with laughter.

She met her husband when she was 15. She was riding on top of a load in a wagon and her long dark tresses was blowing in the breeze. (her exact words) Her husband, in fact, was running away from home but came back to have a second look at that girl and her hair. They were married when Gladys was 16.

Gladys was a democrat because she remembers when FDR improved wages such that they received 35 cents an hour instead of the 20 cents they were getting. She would argue you down if you spoke against the democrats because that 15 cents an hour saved their lives!

Gladys loved my children. She once told Andrew, when he was about 16, that he was very short but he was good with children. We all hooted. She loved for Kaitlin to escort her into church from the car. They would talk about shoes, the weather and what clothes they happen to have on that day. She thought some of John's antics, when he was about 15, were so funny that even I have to laugh and that helped everyone out, especially John.

My friend Gladys is reeking havoc in heaven today and we are broken hearted. Gladys was 95 when she died, her birthday would have been next month. I met Gladys when she was 75 and really got to know her when she was 85! What an example she was to me to always live, always learn, always be aware.

I think I'll go make her cheese ball.