Gladys Minerva Graves

Born in De Smet, South Dakota on June 11, 1919 to Fred and Mabel Gilbert, Gladys was the second child of 8 near the small town of Erwin. She was born in the year of the Spanish Flu pandemic and went on to live through another pandemic 100 years later under coronavirus. She died at the age of 103 on October 26, 2022 in Austell, Georgia where she resided in a nursing home after living her adult life in California. She grew up on a farm near Erwin, South Dakota and attended West Bethany Lutheran Church. Her Grandfather Peter started the church on the prairie. The original church building was donated and moved to the Little House on the Prairie Museum in De Smet. Gladys graduated from Bryant High School and attended Madison State Normal for a teachers credential. She taught all 8 lower grades in a 1 room schoolhouse and made sure to get to the building to start the wood furnace before the children arrived. She loved children and cared for her younger 6 siblings when her mother died. The family left South Dakota during the Dust Bowl and settled in Carmel, California where Gladys worked as a waitress, telephone switchboard operator, wildfire smoke, and enemy plane spotter during WWII in the mountains around the coastline. She rode a horse to get from one forest tower to the next. She met her husband, Howard, in Carmel while he was stationed during the war at Fort Ord. After he was transferred to Fort Lee, Virginia, she traveled alone on a long train ride to join him in Virginia and they were married in Petersburg, Virginia on June 2, 1945. Upon discharge from the Army, the couple moved to Howard's hometown of Sacramento and built a house in the town. Howard always claimed that Gladys dug the cellar for the house. They had 2 children, Rhonda Eggert and Sandra Kirschenmann. Gladys stayed home during their young years and taught them lessons, read to them, walked them to school and gave them an idyllic childhood. She never learned to drive and walked everywhere. Many neighbors remember her early morning walks throughout the neighborhood and downtown. She completed her degree in Early Childhood education and taught pre-school until she was 75. The couple traveled to the USSR, Norway, and England. She did a walking tour with Rhonda at age 75 across the country of Wales and made a second trip to Norway to visit her family there, the last of the surviving relatives on a farm just outside of Oslo. She was a life-long member of St. John's Lutheran Church of Sacramento where she served as one of the first women council members and directed and organized the Vacation Bible School there for many years. The girls cherish the memory of the wonderful potluck suppers at the church that the Women put on with tables bending under the weight of the casseroles, cakes and pies, and all sorts of family favorites. She assisted the Women of the Church with wedding receptions at the church where fruit punch came in big metal milk urns from Crystal Creamery in a slushy delicious treat for all who attended. In the early 2000's, Gladys moved to Georgia and opened the newly developed Assisted Living Facility at Presbyterian Village in Austell by being the first and only resident on the first floor for several weeks. She received care at Presbyterian Village first in Assisted Living and then transferred to the Skilled Nursing Facility on-site where her care has been nothing short of phenomenal. The staff at PV became her second family especially during the Covid years when the facility was closed to all but staff who cared for her and kept her safe. Rhonda and Sandy cannot express their gratitude enough to every member of the staff and the caring they provided her to the end. She is survived by her daughters and son-in-law Gregory Eggert. She is predeceased by her husband Howard, and her brothers and sisters Lloyd Gilbert, Lyle Gilbert, Kenneth Gilbert, Ward Gilbert, Dorothy Johnson, Golda Morton and Arlene Coleman. Gladys will be laid to rest in Sacramento at East Lawn next to her husband Howard.