Gloria Bailey

BAILEY, GLORIA H. Gloria Bailey, 89: Amateur artist; talented music composer; stern teacher of all grades from elementary through high school; mother of five absolutely talented, witty and gorgeous children; 1970’s pioneer of going-back-to-college in your 40’s; a single parent to three young children in the days loooong before child support—don’t even think about her applying for government assistance—and Sugar Daddies?!? NOT. AN. OPTION. Lover of stray animals, oil paint, Toll House cookies, the guitar, and Dillard’s. She preferred Manhattans with a cocktail onion and Pall Malls by the carton. She loved Pucci scarfs. And she truly DID walk 2 miles in the snow to attend Western State College to work 3 jobs in order to keep us nourished with imaginatively crazy varieties of “AWESOME” tuna casseroles, clothed by the ALWAYS fashionable Salvation Army and housed in the cutest EVER mobile home on the west side of town by the river. We had a lot of love. And we had a piano AND a Hifi. We also had stacks of vinyl records from composers Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovski, Mantovani and Glenn Miller, along with volumes of painfully heavy art books from the likes of Rodin, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Michelangelo. Because the arts were extremely important to her, they were going to be extremely important to us…the very same way Brussels sprouts and liver ’n onions were. Indeed. Gloria was born in Matagalpa, Nicaragua to a successful coffee bean plantation owner and his beautiful sweetheart, Carmen, in 1926. She was whisked away to safety from beneath a nut tree as a toddler during a horrific earthquake that devastated her homeland. At the sweet age of 16, without understanding a lick of English, she was sent to America by her father’s new wife—a 1st cousin—SCANDOLOUS!—, to attend high school in Eau Claire, Wisconsin where she mutilated the English language and met up with her future husband, John Calvert Foster. There, she attended a 2 year college. She and John married after a yearlong courtship. Transferring with his corporate job, they both welcomed those whom she is survived by: MarjieBonell Foster born in Eau Claire, Steven Clark Foster born in New Orleans and their three youngest children, Linda Lee Gilmore, Calvert John Foster and the baby of the family, Jean Ann Sealey born in San Juan, Puerto Rico where they lived while John worked for Honeywell. Gloria admitted, as often as possible, falling madly in love with then President John F. Kennedy upon sharing an elevator ride with him and his gorgeous wife, Jackie. She also confessed to falling madly in love with Ricardo Montalvan of Fantasy Island before there was a Fantasy Island. Englebert Humperdink was amongst the most fortunate dream lover of all. Gloria and her family returned to America in 1969 to settle in Poncha Springs, Colorado whereupon she decided to seek a divorce and return to earn her degree in elementary education in Gunnison, Colorado. She endured fever blisters, frost bite, The Jackson 5, Donny and Marie, kitties giving birth to bloody kittens in her underwear drawer, The Partridge Family, hip huggers, waffle stompers, weed and black eyeliner. And to pubescent children with screaming requests for Shaun Cassidy metal lunch boxes and bicycles with white baskets and colored streamers on the handle bars for Christmas. She graduated in the Spring of 1974 amongst students half her age. Gloria taught elementary and secondary school in many cities throughout New Mexico and Texas. She was awarded numerous academic accolades before retiring and meeting the love of her life in a SWEET group home in Socorro, New Mexico in the ’80's. Our family angel, Charles F. Bailey, retired after 36 years of service in the United States Coast Guard. Charles spotted Gloria from across the senior lunch room and “the rest is history”, folks. Charles afforded Gloria with a lifestyle becoming her dedicated and unchained spirit, her endless need to better herself through education, her love of the classics in every form and her need for a loving companion who would embrace her children as his own. Thank you, Charles. Thank you. Our beautiful mother now finally rests at peace surrounded by many loved ones, her pink stuffed bear and photos of Charles as she grasps her bronze Crucifix and a package of Pall Malls in her perfectly manicured hands. Manhattans are on the house. Drink UP everyone! You broke every stereotype before there were stereotypes, Mom. THANK YOU! There will be no other quite like you. You were nowhere near ordinary. And your children are nowhere near ordinary because you run through our veins. BOOP We love you more than you will ever know. But you already knew that. BTW, How’s JFK? Rest in peace, Mama… A private family service is planned. Thank you for your prayers at this difficult time.

Gloria Bailey

September 17, 2015