On Saturday morning, we bid farewell to my Dad, Gilbert Gray, laying him to rest with military honors and a small group of family and friends at a small country cemetery near Lacey Springs, Virginia.
My father was born in the hills of Page County, Virginia on August 24th of 1940 and grew up in Pine Grove, where his family lived life in a manner long since vanished from all but the poorest and most remote parts of this country.
When not in school, the family spent their days tending the garden, picking morels, cherries, raspberries and blackberries in the summer and spring, helping to make apple butter and cider, chasing down the hogs that ran wild in the woods and helping with the butchering and canning in the fall, hunting rabbit and turkey and deer to help fill the family's larder in a time when poor folks didn't really know they were poor.
After graduation, Dad left the hills of Kite Hollow and Page County to work in Washington, DC, where my grandfather had once worked with other CCC trainees to build the Memorial Bridge, one of the last bridges built with brick and mortar as well as concrete.
In Washington, Dad met my mother, Joyce Gray, a daughter of New Hampshire, where she had grown up on a 240 acre dairy farm after being adopted from unimaginable poverty.
We came back to the States, where my sister Diana was born in Chickapee, Massachusetts.
Dad was stationed at Loring AFB in Maine and was part of NORAD's DEW development team, making flights to and over the Arctic Circle.
When Dad left the Air Force, we moved to Virginia, where Dad worked as a maintenance superintendent while pursuing a college education. After completing his degree, my Dad went to work for the school system back in Page County, where he had grown up, inspiring other country kids to dream beyond the limits of poverty and to reach for lives their grandparents could only dream of. During this time, we moved out of Neff Trailer Park and onto land near Keezletown, VA.
The four of us were still living out of a trailer with an addition built on for my parents' bedroom and a small sewing room where my mom made many of our clothes, when not working as a receptionist and secretary at Packaging Corporation of America in Harrisonburg, VA.
In order to move his family out of the trailer and into a home, Dad started his own electrical contracting business, and I went to work at age 11, spending weekends and summer vacations wiring residences which were springing up around the nearby Spotswood Country Club and helping renovate older homes in and around Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.
What few vacations we took were spent visiting with my Mom's family in New Hampshire and exploring the mountains and seashores of New England, wandering through the Smithsonian and museums of Washington, DC or visiting the Wright Brothers monument, learning to surf and beachcombing on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
I had hiked most of the Appalachian trail in Virginia before I had my learner's permit. With several schoolmates and my friend Kris Kline, I discovered the underground wonders of the karstlands in VA and WV.
My dad went on to work for Ashland Construction as a superintendent, building CVS Pharmacies, Rite-Aid, Food Lion and Wal-Mart stores and shopping centers all over the East Coast. He consistently brought in contracts ahead of schedule, under budget and with few or no customer complaints.
Dad finally fulfilled the dream that had taken him into the Air Force and got his pilot's license, after which he became a member of the Shenandoah Valley REACT group, a local volunteer search and rescue operation. From there, he moved on to the Civil Air Patrol and was commander of the Shenandoah Valley Senior Squadron, as well as a member of several surrounding CAP groups. He spent weeks searching for a group of lost hunters in Hungry Mother State Park, among other missions, and after the bodies and plane were discovered, remained in contact with the families of the crash victims.
Dad loved to fly and another of his dreams was to attend the fly-in at Oshkosh, WI. He finally realized that hope with the help of his longtime friend John Scott, a crusty USMC veteran of the Korean War. John and Dad spent many happy hours aloft above the mountains and valleys of Virginia, and I was privileged to accompany them and to fly with Dad on many occasions, including the time he flew me over Seneca Rocks and Smoke Hole in appreciation of my love of climbing and knowledge of how much time I spent on the cliffs of both locations.
Dad was always a friend of my friends, as wild and woolly a bunch as they may have been, and he was a Southern gentleman in every way to my girlfriends and to my high school sweetheart and first wife, Deena Carper. When Deena and I split after three years, Dad offered a lot of good advice and was there for me in every way. He never became bitter with Deena, recognizing from his own past that people change and grow and make mistakes along the way that cannot be fixed.
On my twenty-first birthday, Dad allowed me to fill the yard with my friends, while Patrick Donegan, Jon Helbraun, Danny Teter, and Thomas Kent rocked the house to the tunes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Motley Crue, Metallica and the Allman Brothers.
As I roamed America in the years that followed, Dad delighted in my adventures and often sent or deposited funds unasked. Without his inspiration and support, I would not have had the opportunity to explore Yosemite, Red Rocks, Las Vegas, Hueco Tanks, the Needles of California, Tuolumne, Sedona or Mt. Lemmon.
When I returned from my adventures, Dad invariably recruited me for work based on 3 decades of experience as an electrician, carpenter and equipment operator. Some of my fondest memories are times spent on the jobsite with Dad and the evenings we spent eating take-out and sipping cold brews in the hotel after a hard day on the job.
When I met my wife Cindy in Franklin, WV in 2008, I was living in Smoke Hole Canyon, where my parents both enjoyed joining us for hikes along the river. Dad loved sycamores and blackberries, and anyone who has been to the canyon knows there are plenty of both to be found along the banks of the South Branch of the Potomac.
Dad was instrumental in helping me self-publish my Climber's Guide to Smoke Hole Canyon in 2010, and in getting copies mailed out to buyers while my wife and I were volunteering and working as campground hosts and maintenance staff in Arizona and Colorado. He hand delivered copies to volunteers working on trails at Reed's Creek and fielded questions from climbers and buyers alike.
In 2012, Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Due to his uncomplaining, stoic nature, the cancer had spread much further through his body than at first hoped. Cindy and I got the news in Boulder Creek, near Canyon Lake, on the Apache Trail in Arizona, and headed home in the spring of 2013.
In August of that year, our first grandchild, Shelby Grace Turner, was born. My parents set aside their own troubles and were as proud as anyone could have been of their first great-grandchild. Since then, Shelby has acquired two sisters, Emmalyn and Madaline, and both were sources of great joy and comfort to my Dad as his own health deteriorated.
In the winter of 2018 and spring of 2019, Dad began to question the wisdom of continuing with the experimental trials to battle his cancer. After a single chemo treatment, he said "What will be, will be" and discontinued all treatment.
In late April, his doctor revealed that the cancer which had spread to his bones had also entered his liver. He was given three to five months.
We joined my parents and good family friend Paul Quillen for a final trip to the Outer Banks in May, staying at Oregon Inlet for a week, drinking Cuba Libre's and eating barbecue, reminiscing and laughing and sharing time.
On Friday, June 21st, I spent the morning of my 56th birthday setting up medicine dosage schedules and assembling a hospital bed for Dad in my parent's living room, from which he could look through the window across the Shenandoah Valley to the Blue Ridge where it borders West Virginia.
On Tuesday morning, after days and nights during which my wife and myself traded shifts with my mother and my sister, talked to dad and sang hymns and old Creedence Clearwater tunes and prayed with my brother in law Marty Breeden, my father fell into a deep sleep.
On Wednesday morning, just after 9 o'clock, my father drew his last breath and set out "to join the innumerable caravan that wends its way from dawn to dusk".
Despite the disagreements and misunderstandings that plagued our relationship throughout his life, my father remains one of my greatest icons and inspirations, mentor, teacher, and friend. I know that the hole his departure left will diminish in the glow of the good memories and appreciation of his support and love.
But I will always miss his hearty laugh and his warm hugs, his unique perspective on being southern and an American.
Thank you, Dad.
Godspeed.
My father was born in the hills of Page County, Virginia on August 24th of 1940 and grew up in Pine Grove, where his family lived life in a manner long since vanished from all but the poorest and most remote parts of this country.
Dad grew up running through the Blue Ridge Mountains with his brothers and half brothers and sisters and other country kids; playing on the grounds of Camp Hoover on the Skyline Drive, where my grandfather had become a journeyman mason and built many of the stone walls that stand to this day.
He attended tiny Page County Elementary school; after his parents separated, he went to live with his mother in White Post outside Winchester, Virginia and graduated from Clarke County High School.
He attended tiny Page County Elementary school; after his parents separated, he went to live with his mother in White Post outside Winchester, Virginia and graduated from Clarke County High School.
When not in school, the family spent their days tending the garden, picking morels, cherries, raspberries and blackberries in the summer and spring, helping to make apple butter and cider, chasing down the hogs that ran wild in the woods and helping with the butchering and canning in the fall, hunting rabbit and turkey and deer to help fill the family's larder in a time when poor folks didn't really know they were poor.
After graduation, Dad left the hills of Kite Hollow and Page County to work in Washington, DC, where my grandfather had once worked with other CCC trainees to build the Memorial Bridge, one of the last bridges built with brick and mortar as well as concrete.
In Washington, Dad met my mother, Joyce Gray, a daughter of New Hampshire, where she had grown up on a 240 acre dairy farm after being adopted from unimaginable poverty.
Dad won fair lady's heart, joined the Air Force, and they were wed in Texas. I was born in a military hospital in Spain on June 21st of 1963.
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| Proud new father and wide-eyed son in Cadiz, Spain |
We came back to the States, where my sister Diana was born in Chickapee, Massachusetts.
Dad was stationed at Loring AFB in Maine and was part of NORAD's DEW development team, making flights to and over the Arctic Circle.
When Dad left the Air Force, we moved to Virginia, where Dad worked as a maintenance superintendent while pursuing a college education. After completing his degree, my Dad went to work for the school system back in Page County, where he had grown up, inspiring other country kids to dream beyond the limits of poverty and to reach for lives their grandparents could only dream of. During this time, we moved out of Neff Trailer Park and onto land near Keezletown, VA.
The four of us were still living out of a trailer with an addition built on for my parents' bedroom and a small sewing room where my mom made many of our clothes, when not working as a receptionist and secretary at Packaging Corporation of America in Harrisonburg, VA.
In order to move his family out of the trailer and into a home, Dad started his own electrical contracting business, and I went to work at age 11, spending weekends and summer vacations wiring residences which were springing up around the nearby Spotswood Country Club and helping renovate older homes in and around Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.
What few vacations we took were spent visiting with my Mom's family in New Hampshire and exploring the mountains and seashores of New England, wandering through the Smithsonian and museums of Washington, DC or visiting the Wright Brothers monument, learning to surf and beachcombing on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
I had hiked most of the Appalachian trail in Virginia before I had my learner's permit. With several schoolmates and my friend Kris Kline, I discovered the underground wonders of the karstlands in VA and WV.
My dad went on to work for Ashland Construction as a superintendent, building CVS Pharmacies, Rite-Aid, Food Lion and Wal-Mart stores and shopping centers all over the East Coast. He consistently brought in contracts ahead of schedule, under budget and with few or no customer complaints.
Dad finally fulfilled the dream that had taken him into the Air Force and got his pilot's license, after which he became a member of the Shenandoah Valley REACT group, a local volunteer search and rescue operation. From there, he moved on to the Civil Air Patrol and was commander of the Shenandoah Valley Senior Squadron, as well as a member of several surrounding CAP groups. He spent weeks searching for a group of lost hunters in Hungry Mother State Park, among other missions, and after the bodies and plane were discovered, remained in contact with the families of the crash victims.
Dad loved to fly and another of his dreams was to attend the fly-in at Oshkosh, WI. He finally realized that hope with the help of his longtime friend John Scott, a crusty USMC veteran of the Korean War. John and Dad spent many happy hours aloft above the mountains and valleys of Virginia, and I was privileged to accompany them and to fly with Dad on many occasions, including the time he flew me over Seneca Rocks and Smoke Hole in appreciation of my love of climbing and knowledge of how much time I spent on the cliffs of both locations.
Dad was always a friend of my friends, as wild and woolly a bunch as they may have been, and he was a Southern gentleman in every way to my girlfriends and to my high school sweetheart and first wife, Deena Carper. When Deena and I split after three years, Dad offered a lot of good advice and was there for me in every way. He never became bitter with Deena, recognizing from his own past that people change and grow and make mistakes along the way that cannot be fixed.
On my twenty-first birthday, Dad allowed me to fill the yard with my friends, while Patrick Donegan, Jon Helbraun, Danny Teter, and Thomas Kent rocked the house to the tunes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Motley Crue, Metallica and the Allman Brothers.
As I roamed America in the years that followed, Dad delighted in my adventures and often sent or deposited funds unasked. Without his inspiration and support, I would not have had the opportunity to explore Yosemite, Red Rocks, Las Vegas, Hueco Tanks, the Needles of California, Tuolumne, Sedona or Mt. Lemmon.
When I returned from my adventures, Dad invariably recruited me for work based on 3 decades of experience as an electrician, carpenter and equipment operator. Some of my fondest memories are times spent on the jobsite with Dad and the evenings we spent eating take-out and sipping cold brews in the hotel after a hard day on the job.
When I met my wife Cindy in Franklin, WV in 2008, I was living in Smoke Hole Canyon, where my parents both enjoyed joining us for hikes along the river. Dad loved sycamores and blackberries, and anyone who has been to the canyon knows there are plenty of both to be found along the banks of the South Branch of the Potomac.
Dad was instrumental in helping me self-publish my Climber's Guide to Smoke Hole Canyon in 2010, and in getting copies mailed out to buyers while my wife and I were volunteering and working as campground hosts and maintenance staff in Arizona and Colorado. He hand delivered copies to volunteers working on trails at Reed's Creek and fielded questions from climbers and buyers alike.
In 2012, Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Due to his uncomplaining, stoic nature, the cancer had spread much further through his body than at first hoped. Cindy and I got the news in Boulder Creek, near Canyon Lake, on the Apache Trail in Arizona, and headed home in the spring of 2013.
 |
| The Gypsies reunite with the Grays in Scottsville, VA, March, 2013 |
In August of that year, our first grandchild, Shelby Grace Turner, was born. My parents set aside their own troubles and were as proud as anyone could have been of their first great-grandchild. Since then, Shelby has acquired two sisters, Emmalyn and Madaline, and both were sources of great joy and comfort to my Dad as his own health deteriorated.
In the winter of 2018 and spring of 2019, Dad began to question the wisdom of continuing with the experimental trials to battle his cancer. After a single chemo treatment, he said "What will be, will be" and discontinued all treatment.
In late April, his doctor revealed that the cancer which had spread to his bones had also entered his liver. He was given three to five months.
We joined my parents and good family friend Paul Quillen for a final trip to the Outer Banks in May, staying at Oregon Inlet for a week, drinking Cuba Libre's and eating barbecue, reminiscing and laughing and sharing time.
On Friday, June 21st, I spent the morning of my 56th birthday setting up medicine dosage schedules and assembling a hospital bed for Dad in my parent's living room, from which he could look through the window across the Shenandoah Valley to the Blue Ridge where it borders West Virginia.
On Tuesday morning, after days and nights during which my wife and myself traded shifts with my mother and my sister, talked to dad and sang hymns and old Creedence Clearwater tunes and prayed with my brother in law Marty Breeden, my father fell into a deep sleep.
On Wednesday morning, just after 9 o'clock, my father drew his last breath and set out "to join the innumerable caravan that wends its way from dawn to dusk".
Despite the disagreements and misunderstandings that plagued our relationship throughout his life, my father remains one of my greatest icons and inspirations, mentor, teacher, and friend. I know that the hole his departure left will diminish in the glow of the good memories and appreciation of his support and love.
But I will always miss his hearty laugh and his warm hugs, his unique perspective on being southern and an American.
Thank you, Dad.
Godspeed.
 |
| With my parents, Joyce and Gil, at the Lambert Hilltop Park Volunteer Center in Cherry Grove, WV |
A lovely tribute to your Dad. Mike you are fondly remembered as being a kind and patient climbing mentor to a slow grey haired school teacher from Oklahoma. Your Dad is probably beaming from ear to ear to see the person you have become.
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