'A real role model in being a lady'

After a dusty start, Gladys Tracy found Moses Lake 'an exciting place to be'

MOSES LAKE - Gladys Tracy recently told her daughter this would be her last year with the Central Basin Community Concert Association.

"She said, 'Mother, I've heard that so many times,'" Gladys said.

Gladys has been involved with the association, which enters its 54th season this fall, every year except the first, when one of her sons was born.

"Do you know? I really wish we could get new personnel in," she said. "That's why, this year, I am still on this drive. Partly because we need to get people to replace us, and we need to get more people, new people, involved. We're always after new people to join us."

But Gladys said she was looking forward to the Celtic Tenors concert Tuesday.

"I really have enjoyed the Community Concert Association," she said. "I've always said it hasn't been work to me because I like it."

She moved to Moses Lake Feb. 13, 1949. She and her husband, Harold, both hailed from Iowa, meeting at the University of Iowa as he was starting medical school and she was finishing her nursing training.

"A couple of friends of his that he lived with there were dating two of my friends in nurse's training and so they asked me to go along one night on a blind date, and I did," Gladys remembered.

Gladys graduated in June 1941 and finished training in September.

"As you know, Pearl Harbor was Dec. 7, and the morning after, we brand-new graduates were all called in and asked to join the service, which most of us did," she said. "Those were busy days because of all the recruits and I worked in contagion. One night when I went off duty, we had 120 cases of meningitis. That was my thing, I got into working with meningitis."

Gladys' throat cultures were tested for infection every Monday morning, and she never once came up positive for meningitis.

"I honestly feel I built up a natural immunity to it," she said. "It never occurred to me I might get it. But now, when I think about it and read about meningitis in the newspaper, I honestly do think the bugs change, as I hear some of these symptoms."

Harold was still in medical school, although the couple kept up their communication.

"Foolishly, we thought the war would last only a short time, so I went into the service," she said. "Well, it didn't last a short time. It went on and on, and so we decided to get married in October of 1942. I really didn't see him much, but he was so busy with school I wouldn't have seen him much anyway."

Gladys was in the military for two years, and returned home. They started a family, and Gladys never worked again, save for filling in for night duty on several occasions in Moses Lake when short of nurses.

"I prayed all night they wouldn't have any car accidents, and they didn't," Gladys recalled. "Fortunately for me, because I was rusty on my nursing."

Harold was a physician, and had to drive to a hospital 30 miles away while living in Lacrosse, where the couple first wound up.

"Of course, at the time we moved to Moses Lake, there was no hospital here, either," Gladys recalled.

Larson Air Force Base was in the process of being reactivated, she said, and the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project had begun, so there was an influx of people coming into the area.

Gladys had three children (of seven) by that time, so she wasn't working - "I kind of had a pediatric service of my own," she said with a grin - but Harold kept busy.

"It was a young community," she said. "There were an awful lot of new babies and unfortunately there were a lot of accidents (related to work on the project), it seemed like, that entailed a lot of medical time. Another thing about that time, Highway 90 was quite a thoroughfare here. There were a lot of car accidents. I don't know, but it seemed like there were, and a lot of dust blowing."

When she first arrived, Gladys couldn't stand the town.

"Every day, the dust blew," she said. "You could clean house and the next day, you'd never know. The dust did blow terribly, but I say, I could have left in a minute if he would have, but he wasn't about to leave. It was the people that changed my mind. I had a complete turnabout on that. I thought Moses Lake was the greatest place. It really was the greatest place to raise kids. It was an exciting place to be."

While the Tracy children grew up, the family participated in a number of activities, including many school projects, with Harold and Gladys getting involved in a lot of things, including the concert association and the First Presbyterian Church.

Harold died in September 2003. The couple was married almost 64 years.

"I guess Harold's enthusiasm for the community rubbed off on me, because I felt that way too," she said with a laugh. "It's been interesting to be a part of it."

Friend Pauline Lepsche became acquainted with Gladys while serving with her on the board of directors of the concert association more than 35 years ago, with both women eventually becoming elected as co-directors of the association's membership drive.

"We spent much time together and on the telephone planning strategies for enlisting new members for the association," Lepsche said. "Needless to say we discussed many other issues such as our faith in God, our families, health issues, national and world events, to name a few. I have found her to be a very caring and loving person and my life has been enriched by her friendship."

Byrdeen Worley said she got close to Gladys through the church upon her arrival in 1960.

"She is the most positive, quiet, calm, persuasive in her little quiet way, and determined of anyone I've ever known," Worley said. "She just gets things done in this calm quiet way. She's been busy with a lot of civic processes and entertainment things - anything that helps the neighborhood and the cultural part of our town has been one of Gladys' goals."

But Tracy can prove to be too persuasive, Worley added. When her husband was alive, and the phone would ring …

"He'd say, 'I hope that's not Gladys! I can never say no to Gladys!'" Worley recalled with a laugh. "I really care for her, she doesn't call unless she really wants something and she does it in such a gentle, ladylike way, and such a persuasive way, you just can't say no. I just admire her. She's just been a real role model in being a lady."

"Many of us regard her as a saint," longtime friend Ethylmarie Greeley said. "She is a legend in our time. Take any letter from A to Z that begins an affirming complimentary adjective it would describe Gladys Dillon Tracy."

Gladys' interests are legion, Greeley added.

"She is keenly committed to any belief she espouses and they are many," she added. "With all these accomplishments she has exhibited a greatly to be admired equanimity. Humility is innate in her spirit and loyalty is an ever-present trait … (She) is not only a friend and role model, but a mainstay in the lives of those whom she loves and is loved by."