Funeral Service: Friday at 2:00 p.m. in the chapel of Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home in Miles City
Interment: will follow in the Custer County Cemetery
Eleanor Nickerson Gray of Miles City died, at age 74, on February 1, 2004 of metastatic cancer of the pancreas that was first diagnosed on December 9,2003.
She was born Eleanor Titus Nickerson in Long Beach, California to Chauncey Maynard and Ann Titus Nickerson. Her father was a petroleum engineer and worked for the U. S. Geological Survey in Taft, California. Her mother had earned an M.A. at the University of Southern California and was a high schoolteacher of English and a homemaker. Eleanor's only other sibling, William, was born in 1932. From Eleanor's birth through her grammar school years, her father was a pilot in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Naval Reserves. Hence the family moved frequently: from Taft, California to Washington, D.C.; Chevy Chase, Maryland; the Naval Station in Alameda, California; Corpus Christi, Texas; Long Beach, California; Casper, Wyoming; and finally Midwest, Wyoming. Consequently, Eleanor attended two different schools in each grade from third to eighth. She was in three schools during her sixth grade alone! Notwithstanding the moves, Eleanor had an aptitude for learning, and therefore was able to skip ahead several half grades.
During Christmas 2003, when Eleanor's daughter, Linda, recorded her life story, Eleanor still remembered that while growing up during the Great Depression there were three phrases she tired of hearing: "We can't do this. We can't buy that. It's too expensive." Her family was more prosperous than many, but Eleanor remembered, to this day, one classmate who came to school barefoot. In 1940 her father was recalled to active duty in the Navy. On December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, the family was living on the Alameda Naval Air Station in California. Eleanor recalled that her impression was that Californians expected the Japanese electricity. Her mother lit candles on the dinner table. Eleanor said: "We're eating dinner, and here comes this high-school boy. We knew him and his parents. They lived across the street. We had these venetian blinds, and here they were open. He said, 'You know, we have a blackout, because of the Japanese raid. We are at war. Your candles are making too much light.' Well, my mother had never thought about that. So everything was blown out and the blinds were drawn."
Eleanor also remembered that during the war years her mother recycled their threadbare sheets by cutting them in two, flipping the pieces so that the less worn parts fell in the middle, resewing the pieces, and then reseaming the new outer edges. Rationing ended with the war. Eleanor's mother had not been able to buy new sheets all that time, so as soon as they could she instructed her husband to buy the best sheets he could find.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the family moved to Midwest, Wyoming where one time the emergency siren blew for so long that the neighborhood dogs had to be taken five miles away, because the high pitch was too painful for their ears. Wartime rationing was in place. Eleanor's mother was very careful with her sugar. She kept it in the basement. A maintenance man who worked under Eleanor's father came to make repairs over a series of visits. Very gradually, although her mother did not realize it for months, the sugar was stolen, one bag at a time. By the time she caught on, it was too late to recover the rations, and the man had been transferred to Casper. When Victory over Japan was declared, Eleanor was traveling with her family on a business trip in the Black Hills in Leeds, South Dakota.
In 1946, when Eleanor was 16, she graduated from high school in Midwest, Wyoming having won a freshman scholarship to Pomona College in Claremont, California. The scholarship paid half her tuition ($200 each semester). At that time, female students at Pomona did not get jobs during the summer, but the male students did. Female students washed their sheets by hand every week. Male students had maids who made their beds, cleaned their rooms, and provided clean sheets every week. Most students lived close enough so that they mailed clothes, and to a new housing situation. Her suite held five women, and the freshmen slept in a screened-in porch. When fall arrived, the screened-in porch became decidedly chillier, even after they pulled up the shades over the screens.
Eleanor majored in psychology, and graduated with a B.A. in 1950. She was diligent in studying, and she also learned to ski and play tennis. After graduation, she stayed at the Salvation Army dormitory in Los Angeles, which provided two meals a day. She worked as a receptionist in a small advertising agency. Eleanor then moved closer to her parents who by then lived in Casper, Wyoming. There she worked in the payroll department for Standard Oil. She joined Desk & Derrick, a national organization of women who worked in the oil industry, and served as treasurer and then president, and represented her chapter at several national and international conventions. She also joined AAUW, the American Association of University Women and remained a faithful member the rest of her life.
Eleanor met her future husband, George L. "Scotty" Gray, playing tennis in Casper, Wyoming. She agreed to a first date on Scotty's fourth request. They married on July 11, 1959 at the First Presbyterian Church in Casper, and for the next 44 years they continued to play tennis. Their first son died less than one day after birth of a heart defect. Subsequently Eleanor gave birth to two healthy, happy children, George and Linda. After George's birth, Eleanor became a certified intelligence tester in Casper. While her mother took care of George, she tested students part-time for the local school district. At the end of the school year, she chose to stop working, because she did not want to leave her baby with strangers. Then Linda was born, and Scotty was hired by the Bureau of Land Management in Ely, Nevada.
Eleanor and Scotty took their almost two year old boy and four month old girl and moved to Ely, but in just two years Scotty was transferred to the Bureau of Land Management office in Miles City, Montana where they lived for the next forty years.
In Miles City, Eleanor was very involved in a variety of community organizations. She local school board to fill a vacancy. She was an advocate for local and state funding on behalf of Gifted and Talented Programs for the local schools. She led a troop of Brownies for two years. She was accepted to the Kellogg Extension for Education Program, a Montana State University project that aimed to develop the skills of community leaders. She taught "Introduction to Psychology" at Miles City Community College. She served as a trustee of the Miles City Public Library Board from 1986 to 1998, and was board chair for the last four years. The Montana State Library Association elected her as Trustee of the Year in 1998, and she was appointed by Governor Marc Racciot to serve as a Montana State Library Commissioner. All of her life Eleanor was a generous and conscientious woman who served her community well.
Her family will remember Eleanor as an intelligent and very caring wife, mother and mother-in-law. She delighted in filling her garden with splendid zinnias and irises year after year, and in simply talking about books, ideas, and all things that concerned her children no matter how momentous or trivial. This last Christmas, as all six family members sat around a fragrant tree filled to the edges with ornaments--some as old as one hundred years-Eleanor was pleased and assured her beloved family that she'd lived a long good life, enjoyed a happy marriage, and raised two independent and successful children. Eleanor was gratified and at peace. Her courage and dignity was an inspiration, as was all of her life.
Eleanor Nickerson Gray is survived by her husband of forty-four years, George L. "Scotty" Gray; by her brother, William (and his wife Betty) Nickerson, of Casper, Wyoming; and by two of her children, George Nickerson (and his wife Dulce Maria) Gray of Saratoga, California; and Linda Robyn Gray (and her husband Steve Behrendt) of Wellington, New Zealand.
Visitation will be held Thursday in the chapel in Miles City. Family will receive friends on Thursday, February 5, 2004 from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the chapel in Miles City. Funeral services will be held on Friday, February 6, 2004 at 2:00 p.m. in the chapel of Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home in Miles City. Interment will follow in the family lot in the Custer County Cemetery. Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting www.stevensonandsons.com.
Should friends desire, memorials may be made to the Miles City Library Foundation or to the Miles Community College Scholarship Fund.
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