Gary, Wilma M. Passed away Thursday June 28, 2007. The family is truly thankful that the Lord allowed her to spend her last six months in Texas surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Our mother was born in Dunlap, Kansas on May 22, 1923 to Henry Baker and Mamie O. Hale. She is survived by her brother Cleo Hale and family in California. Mom and her late husband Printice T. Gary are survived by their six children: Janice Gary, Printice Gary and his wife Cynthia, Hedy Gray, Kenneth Gary and his wife Dineo, Alberta Hicks, her husband Victor all of Texas, and Russell Craig Gary of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She had 17 grandchildren, 25 great- grandchildren, 2 great-great-grandchildren, and many other family members and close friends including Joy Lumbly & Pam Hardimon Jackson. Our mother loved education and had a strong desire to share her knowledge with both young and old. Her yearning for knowledge, uniquely, was nurtured by her father who raised a yearling and sold it to finance her start at Emporia State College (Kansas) in 1939. Our mother worked her way through college and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 19. She was an early, undocumented civil rights activist; taking genuine risks including sit-ins (1941), and other bold actions to challenge then existing social injustices at a time when there was very limited mass media coverage to generate exposure and rally sympathy for local civil rights demonstrations. After college she began her career teaching in a one-room country school. She went on to teach in the public school systems in Kansas and Minnesota. She was director of CEP and Volunteers Unlimited programs, which targeted disadvantaged people by empowering them through education, employment and training women in community service. Her final positions include being the first African American woman to teach at the University of Minnesota Agriculture division and working with the Minneapolis Unemployment office from which she retired in 2005. In addition to being an avid reader, our mother loved God, family, teaching, history, art, literature, and every part of quilting. All of these passions were combined as she collected quilts and studied the history of quilt-making. She was taught to quilt by her Texas-born mother at the age of six. As she matured and continued her interest, she recognized the absence of information in America's history of African American quilts and quilt-making. She researched this area and began lecturing, writing, and showing her beautiful collection throughout the Twin Cities area. She was an expert on quilt making and the codes held within the quilts made by slaves to help one another along their journey to freedom as they fled on the Underground Railroad. Funeral service will be held on Thursday, July 12 at 11:00 AM at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, 3355 4th Street North, Minneapolis, MN 55412. Visitation one hour prior to service. Estes Funeral Chapel 612-521-6744
This obituary was originally published in the Star Tribune.
