Gloria Mae McClay (née Miller) was born on June 3, 1927, in Adams, Massachusetts. to Hazel May Proctor and Paul Edward Miller. The family moved to the Panama Canal Zone when she was 3, where her father taught school and coached athletics. She recalled that government housing had windows with screens but no glass and it rained every day. The family initially lived in Cristobal, and later moved to Gatun to follow her father's job assignments as Physical Education Program Director for U.S. government installations.

Gloria enjoyed sports including swimming, diving, and marksmanship. She earned many swimming and shooting awards, including the complete progression of National Rifle Association Junior Division marksmanship awards up to Distinguished Expert. In 1941 she was the highest scoring member of the Gatun Gun Club junior team that bested all others in the Southeastern mainland states. She also developed interest in physical education.

Gloria's primary schooling was split between Panama and Massachusetts. She and her mother traveled back and forth to the US by ship, with their last trip made much longer by keeping close to shore in convoy to avoid submarine attack. She spent summers working and playing on her grandparents' farm in Massachusetts, forming some of her most durable memories.

Gloria graduated from Springfield Classical High School in Springfield, Mass. in 1947. After working for a year at Mass Mutual Insurance Company, she attended the University of Michigan, where she earned a B.S. in Education and, as recognized by the University 60 years later, a varsity letter jacket. She also studied fencing, gymnastics, water polo and synchronized swimming; she later employed those skills during two summers as a waterfront counselor at the Interlochen Arts Academy and in coaching synchronized swimming.

While at the University of Michigan she met and later married Adam McClay, a physician in training, and traveled with him to Galveston, TX and Anchorage, AK (it should be noted, before the establishment of the national highway system), and back to Ann Arbor as Adam completed his internship, residency and orthopedic training. She and her growing family settled in Traverse City in 1955, where Adam established his medical practice.

Throughout her years in Traverse City Gloria was active in numerous civic organizations including Symphony, AAUW, Musicale, Cherry County Playhouse, Munson Hospital Auxiliary, PTA, US Power Squadron, Medical Wives Group, Good Emergency Mother Substitutes, Cherryland Amateur Radio Club and was a founding member of the Grand Traverse Yacht Club.

Gloria was a devout member of Grace Church, where she sang in the choir, served as an usher at the Saturday 5pm service and worked on the Parish Life Committee that organized coffee hours, funeral receptions, dinners, seasonal events, and the annual Grace Cookie Walk. She was an active member of The Order of the Daughters of the King, an Episcopal prayer order for women.

Gloria loved sailing on the upper Great Lakes, traveling abroad, collecting and organizing local and family historical information into scrap books, feeding her family from her productive garden, and knitting prayer shawls, baby blankets and scarves as a member of the Grace Church Prayer Shawl Ministry.

Gloria raised, and is survived by, five children: Elizabeth Ackerman (Michael), Thomas (Corazon), John, Jim (Dianne) and Paul (Saule). She also leaves behind eleven grandchildren and eighteen great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her constantly devoted husband Adam Crawford McClay.

Above all, Gloria cherished her role as a wife, mother and homemaker and will be remembered by family and friends as a pillar of quiet strength and selflessness. Gloria was one of the last living representatives of that uniquely American spirit which dominated the 20th century: a confident and spirited polymath with boundless energy, a love of adventure, and an urge to make a positive and lasting mark on the world.

A memorial service honoring Gloria will take place at 2:00 p.m. with visitation starting at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 29, 2024 at Grace Episcopal Church, 341 Washington St., Traverse City, Michigan 49684.

Those planning an expression of sympathy may wish to consider a memorial donation to Grace Episcopal Church or Cherryland Humane Society.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and memories with Gloria's family at her tribute page at www.reynolds-jonkhoff.com .