Viola K Gray

Viola K. Gray was born August 26, 1924 and would have been 95 years young today. She was preceded in death by four brothers, three sisters and her husband and one son-in-law. She is survived by three children, five grandchildren and seven great-grand children. She grew up in the Oklahoma City area, attended Putnam City Schools and Putnam City Baptist Church until she and Delwin built a home and then moved to the First Baptist Church of Bethany. Viola was quiet, caring and genuinely sweet. She had a good sense of humor and loved to laugh. She took charge of day to day living, dealing out chores, such as hanging or bringing in clothes from the clothes line, ironing shirts or pillow cases. Authoritarian with a fly swatter and most of all her actions included love. She taught her family to love and respect others, she even did her best to teach her children to love liver and onions. She stayed at home until her children we well into their school years, then took a job with the T G & Y Stores. Long after her years there, people would stop her and ask if she was the T G & Y lady; due to her smile and signature “Black” hair. Some time after retiring, she volunteered at the hospital where she continued to share her smile and warmth. Viola surrounded herself with flowers and plants. Flower beds outside and her plants inside filtered among her beloved “Nick Nacks”. This was the soft side of Viola - no one expected her to be a wrestle mania fan, she even went to the fair grounds years earlier with her father to see a match of Oklahoma wrestlers. She saw a lot of changes in her 95 years, the last few living with her daughter and granddaughter. Through it all she was true to herself and her Faith. While going through thoughts and memories of Viola it was discovered that she had kept letters from Delwin while he was away on his two week training sessions in the Army Reserves. Almost every letter ended with he could not wait to get home to see his sweetest one, Well, now Delwin has his sweetest one with him thanks to he and Viola being believers in the Lord.