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As It Was: Girl from the Bronx Moves to Lakeview, Ore.

In 1945, Gloria attended her friend’s wedding in the Bronx, New York, and met her best man, Glenn Ray.

Gloria was a first-generation Italian girl born and raised in New York City.  After high school she worked at the Bank of Manhattan on Wall Street.  Glenn, son of a Lakeview, Ore., logging family, was stationed in Rhode Island.  After a few months courting, they married and moved to his parents’ farm near Lakeview. 

Life in Lakeview was a shock for a New York City girl.  She faced using an outhouse, pumping water by hand, heating and cooking with a wood stove, and taking baths in a tin tub.

At the dinner table each evening, the family talked over farming activities that were a mystery to Gloria. To make conversation one day, she announced a neighbor had put his name on his new tractor—John Deere. They still laugh about that.

Glenn and Gloria Ray did soon move into the house of her dreams with all the modern conveniences.

After many adventures, they have celebrated 73 years of marriage this year.
 

Source: Ray, Gloria. My Life: A Memoir. Central Point Oregon, Gloria Ray, 2007, pp. 13-44.

Gail Fiorini-Jenner is a writer and teacher. Her first novel "Across the Sweet Grass Hills", won the 2002 WILLA Literary Award. She co-authored four histories with Arcadia Publishing: Western Siskiyou County: Gold & Dreams, Images of the State of Jefferson, The State of Jefferson: Then & Now, which placed in the 2008 Next Generation Awards for Nonfiction and Postcards from the State of Jefferson.