Martha Lucile Poole GAYLE

GAYLE, Martha Lucile Poole, widow of Dr. Seth Gayle Jr. Col. U.S. Army MC, died October 31, 2009. She was born to Frank B. and Pricilla C. Pool on January 6, 1913 in Montgomery County, N.C. She grew up and was educated in South Carolina. She attended Winthrop College for two years before entering Nurses Training at Spartanburg General Hospital, Spartanburg, S.C. where she graduated in 1937. She did civilian nursing for three and a half years before joining the Army Nurse Corps in 1941 where she served for eleven and a half years and rose to the rank of Major. She earned the Bronze medal with two battle stars, European medal, and VE Day medal. Mrs. Gayle had two tours of duty in Europe (France and Germany) as well as numerous assignments in the States. In 1944 she went with the 116th Evacuation Hospital to France and Germany as Chief Nurse. The unit crossed the Rhine River on Easter Sunday of 1945 and later assigned to Dachau Concentration Camp the day after it was liberated. She often said: "If ever I did anything for humanity it was there." Her second tour of foreign duty came in 1949 and was assigned as operating room supervisor and assistant chief nurse of the Port Hospital at Bremerhaven, Germany. It was there that she met her future husband. Mrs. Gayle is survived by one son, Lynn P. Gayle, his wife, Linda; two grandchildren, Kelley E. and Sands A. Gayle; two stepchildren, Barbree G. Henderson of Baltimore, Md. and Seth B. Gayle of Richmond; five stepgrandchildren, Thomas S. Henderson, Gayle M. and her husband, Michael J. Maxwell, of Baltimore, Md., Albert L., Martin L., and Robert C. Gayle of Richmond; three great-grandchildren, Thomas K., Veronica G. Maxwell of Baltimore, and Nolan Gayle of Richmond; two sisters, Catherine P. Causey of Conway, S.C. and Jennie P. Curtis of Columbia, S.C.; one brother, John Milton Poole and his wife, Josephine, of Chesterfield, S.C. The family will receive friends and relatives from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Bliley's - Central, 3801 Augusta Ave., Richmond, Va. Funeral service will be held 11 a.m Wednesday at Ginter Park United Methodist Church. Interment will follow at Riverview Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Ginter Park United Methodist Church General Fund, 1010 W. Laburnum Ave., Richmond, Va. 23227.
This obituary was originally published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.