Peggy Gladstone

Peggy H. Gladstone NORFOLK - Peggy Rose Harper Gladstone was born June 20, 1926, in Sharpsburg, N.C., to the late Susie Johnson Harper and John Smith Harper, the youngest sister to the late Frances Harper Dixon and Georgia Harper. After the family settled in Hertford, N.C., she graduated from Ahoskie High School and attended Campbell College, finally graduating in the first class of the DePaul School of Nursing in 1947. She began her career as a staff nurse at DePaul, serving until 1950. She married the late John Lee Gladstone of Exmore, Va., May 28, 1950. After a brief turn at private duty, she became the first office nurse for the surgical practice of Doctors Lee E. Whitlock and M.C. Taverner until 1956, when she moved to Cofield, N.C., joining the operating room staff at Roanoke Chowan Hospital. She returned to Norfolk in 1961, where she joined the Nurses' Professional Registry and began a private duty career, principally at DePaul, which spanned 30 years, concluding as a staff nurse on St. Martin's Hall at DePaul Hospital. Faced with a mortally dangerous medical diagnosis in 1998, she traveled to California for a risky surgery. Many prayers were answered when she was blessed with a successful result. The years 2006-2008 gradually brought relentless medical problems, which she confronted with quiet determination, setting an admirable example of fortitude under crippling adversity. She touched her children with the cheerful, gently loving, and consistently self-sacrificing example she provided under frequently difficult circumstances. She pushed them to reach for and to achieve goals that they might not have otherwise attained. She enjoyed a degree of respect and affection in her private and public life to which they may only aspire. She was a mother whose life was a model of quiet Christian faith, integrity, and selflessness. Her life is her legacy. She departed this life Aug. 30, 2008 at DePaul Hospital. She is survived by her daughter, Susan Harper Gladstone, and son Michael Harper Gladstone, his wife Ann Forrest Hagan Gladstone, and their daughters Forrest Hagan Gladstone, Lilian Harper Gladstone, Emma Lee Johnson Gladstone, and Margaret Campbell Gladstone, in addition to numerous nieces and nephews. Her children will receive family and friends at her home Sunday, Sept. 14, from 1 until 5 p.m. In lieu of flowers, her family requests that those interested in doing so make a donation in her name to their preferred charity.