Grace Irene Gully

Grace Irene Gully, 88, of San Angelo died Tuesday morning, August 6, 2013, in Shannon Hospital. Grace was born in Slaton, Texas on November 18, 1924 to Elo B. and Laura Ernst Hoelscher. The family later moved to the Rowena area where Grace attended St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Rowena and later graduated from Paint Rock High School in 1942. Grace often told a story about an award that was presented to Lowake School in 1942. As part of the war effort, she and her siblings participated in the scrap iron collection that collected 107,000 lbs of metal, earning the school recognition for the most pounds collected in the state.

After graduation and a year spent working on the farm, she moved to San Angelo to attend San Angelo Business College. She worked for several years as a secretary for the State Department of Public Welfare, and then for Neill & Lewis Attorneys, until her marriage. Later in life, she entertained her family with stories of living in downtown San Angelo in the forties and fifties. As many others did, Grace lived in various apartments over downtown businesses. She spent her free time playing volleyball at the Central Fire Station and enjoying five-cent ice cream at the Hudman Drug Store. In her last years, she could still tell the history of each of the old downtown buildings during that era. She was very close to her sister, Mabel, and they shared a strong knowledge of genealogical history and had many debates regarding the details of their recollections.

In 1953, she married Wilbert Gully, a World War II veteran and a farmer from the Rowena area. Shortly after, they moved to the Wall Community where they began a farming operation in which Grace was very active. They farmed in the Wall, Eola, and Mereta areas while raising a family of five children. Since January 1954, the family attended St. Ambrose Catholic Church, where Grace was active in many church functions and organizations.