Gladys M Stanton

Gladys Mae Stanton, age 90, left this life to set forth on her new adventure on New Year’s Day 2022 after battling numerous physical challenges. Her loving, playful spirit, fluent wit and proclivity to find “adventure”, often unintended, left a legacy of innumerable stories, joyfully told and re-told by wide circle of unwittingly complicit, deeply loving family and friends.

Gladys was born the second of four children to Grace L. Brown and Harold A. Nason in Wesleyville, PA in 1931. She met and married Richard Lee Stanton, true love of her life and a more intentional adventurer, in 1953. Together, they passed along that persistent inevitable adventure gene to daughters, Karen Lee Stanton and Barbara Elaine Stanton-Appleby. This “unintended adventure gene” passed to her six unsuspecting grandchildren: Karen’s daughters, Marissa Brooke Gentry and Adrienne Mae Gentry; and the children of Barb and beloved son-in-law, Bob Appleby: Lauren Elizabeth Wrenn, Joseph Richard Appleby, Katherine Grace Coleman and Spencer Wilson Appleby. Beloved spouses, Patrick Wrenn, Megan Appleby and Timmy Coleman are well-versed travelers. Great-grandson, Adam Richard Appleby, has relished this path.

Gladys not only deeply loved, but truly enjoyed, times shared with family-by-relation, by church, by chance and by choice. Until recent times, she was THE BEST at sending birthday cards, congratulation cards and cards “just because”.

Gladys was a driven competitor in card games, board games, etc., delighting (and sometimes frightening) those less wary or invested opponents. However, no secret…a DQ Reese’s Pieces Blizzard often proved an effective distraction.

Gladys worked diligently for many years as a professional secretary and as a tireless volunteer. She enjoyed lighthouses, shells, cobalt blue glass and all things of natural beauty. Gladys also loved any color, “As long as it’s blue”. And so, dressed in blue from head to toe, we sadly, but with sincere appreciation and gratitude, say goodbye to you for now. We will all miss you so much.