Page 10 - Gary's Book - Final Copy 7.9.2017_Active

Who Would Have Thought

I Was Related to . . .?

My dad, Grady Louis Sprouse, was born on March 23, 1903, in Weaversville,
North Carolina. Mom’s name was Eleanor Laird; she was born on April 13, 1916,
in Vandalia, Missouri. They married on February 13, 1935, when Mom was 19

years old and Dad was 31 years old. It was the second marriage for Dad but
Mom’s first. I once met Dad’s first wife, Agnes. I remember that she was real short
and stocky, and Dad was 6’ 4” and weighed around 250 pounds, so they looked
odd together. But the real problem was that she could not have children, so Dad
divorced her and married Mom. What a dichotomy.

Dad was a policeman with the St. Louis Police Department. Mom was a waitress in

a restaurant in South St. Louis where Dad had rented an apartment on the second
floor. After meeting Mom, he informed her and her Aunt Clara that she was going
to marry him. Period. That was it. Dad was very dogmatic and dictatorial and did
not accept any challenges or denials. She was going to marry him; he said so! They

did not date at all. They simply got married. (Mom later told me before she died
that he never once told her that he loved her – not anytime during their fifteen
years of marriage.)

This very bad marriage produced five children:

• Nancy Eleanor was born on April 9, 1936, and died in Tacoma, Washington
of unknown causes at age 68.
• Gary Lee (that’s me!) was born on December 22, 1938, and now lives in

Buford, Georgia.
• Suzanne was born on September 20, 1940, and died in 2003 at the age of 63

after a long struggle with ovarian cancer. She only took chemotherapy to be
able to live to see her next grandchild born.
• Douglas Edward was born on August 19, 1942, and now lives in the Kansas

City area of Missouri.

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