Gloria Price

She was best known for her love of her family, friends, painting, playing bridge and laughter. Especially laughter. Housekeeping, not so much. She was a fine cook, although her toast had its own carbon footprint until she bought an actual toaster in her 80s.

Gloria was married for 68 years to the love of her life, Eugene “Gene” Price, who died in 2019. They spent most of their married life in the Goldsboro area, where Gene was editor of the Goldsboro News Argus. They spent 50 happy years in the Sleepy Creek lake community near Dudley.

She was adored by her children, Sue Price Johnson (Joe) of Raleigh, Bonnie Price West (Don) of Charlotte, Charles Price (Weibing) of Los Altos, CA, and John Price (Karen) of Cary and the late Joyce Price Johnson of Goldsboro. She was also much loved by her grandchildren, Sarah Wilson (Maggie) of Phoenix, AZ, Don West Jr. (Elyse) of Charlotte, Daniel Price of Studio City, CA, Asa Price of Raleigh, Tucker Price of Cary, Jillian Johnson of Greensboro and Brittany Johnson McIntyre (Drew) of Greensboro, and the late Audrey MacCormack West of Charlotte. She is survived by five great-grandchildren, Alexander MacCormack “Mack” West and Nelly West of Charlotte, Waverly Jade Wilson of Phoenix, AZ, and Cora Grace McIntyre and Connor Wesley McIntyre of Greensboro.

Gloria was born in Winthrop, Mass, to the late Elsa Veronica Hackett MacCormack, originally of Trinidad, and John Stewart MacCormack, a native of Clementon, N.J. She had one sister, the late Juanita Sawyer Ferrell of New Bern. Her father was in the Coast Guard, so the family moved often as she grew up, from New York to Cape May, N.J., California and Elizabeth City, where she went to high school and met Gene.

She spent most of her life as wife and mother, except for a stint partnering with friend Ruth Kemp to operate a kindergarten. She and Ruth later shared a cow named Sophie to provide milk for their families. Both families enjoyed the milk for years and, later, the Prices enjoyed Sophie, down to the last burger. (The Kemps were just too tender-hearted.)

She went to seminary in her 50s and was the first woman ordained into the permanent deaconate in North Carolina while at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Goldsboro. She later served at St. Francis Episcopal Church and her much-loved St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. After moving to Capital Oaks Retirement Community in Raleigh, she attended Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church.

Gloria took seriously her duties as a deacon, which once meant spending a long afternoon sobering up at St. Stephens because a visiting priest insisted the remaining communion wine, which filled a large goblet, be consumed.

While Gene was the family hunter/gatherer, filling freezers with fish and wild game, Gloria was the house fix-it person, from making plumbing repairs to installing tile flooring. Once, while doing repairs on the roof, she found herself stranded for a while because Gene, who feared heights, was watching a football game. During a commercial break, he came out and directed her to and down the ladder.

She and Gene were known to take in any and all who needed shelter, including visiting reporters, stray dogs and cats and, for a while, five young men from the Philippines who came to the country for a farm internship but were somehow separated from the system and were living in hardship.

After their granddaughter, Sarah, was adopted, Gloria realized that a longtime family friend, Joyce Garris Johnson, was really family. Joyce had been orphaned at an early age and wound up in the foster care system while a child. She and Gene formally adopted Joyce, then 40, making her both the oldest and newest member of the family.

A memorial service will be held Saturday at 4 p.m. in the theater at Capital Oaks Retirement Community, 6498 Ray Road, Raleigh, NC