July 21, 1926 - May 12, 2023
The services celebrating and honoring the life of Kathleen Meta Wolf Gray “Katzy”, 96, of Enid, will be held 11:00 A.M. Thursday May 18, 2023, in the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church with Pastor David Reber officiating. Graveside services will be held 2:00 P.M. in the Memorial Park Cemetery under the direction of Brown-Cummings Funeral Home.
Thanks to the “Greenbrier Villages”.
Katzy was the daughter of Gus and Lena Wolf, the little sister of Leona Young, Arnold Wolf and Eleanor Turner Kremeier and eventually the big sister of Buddy (Gus Robert) Wolf.
She was baptized and confirmed at Emmanuel Lutheran, the church her grandfather helped found in Kingfisher, Oklahoma.
In her junior year of high school, her father took a job at Tinker and along with her parents, she moved to Oklahoma City. She graduated in 1944 from Central High School.
In January of 1946, she met Paul Gray, and they were married April 28, 1946. Working in downtown Oklahoma City, she helped put Paul through Petroleum Engineering School at OU. Thus began 9 years of nomadic life in the oil patch. Wess (1953), Steve (1956) and Linda (1959) were the focus of a stay-at-home mother.
1961 began their family’s life in Enid. After Linda entered Kindergarten, Kathleen started washing dishes in the Longfellow cafeteria and eventually retired as cafeteria manager after 26 years in 1991.
Their son Steve died in a car accident July 4, 1978.
She helped in raising four granddaughters and welcomed her two Chicago grandsons on their yearly vacations to Enid.
Shortly after her retirement, Paul became ill and she was his 24/7 caretaker until his hospitalization in 2007 and death in 2008. They were married 61 years.
During her retirement years, she also helped with two of her great-grandchildren. In 2020, Steve’s wife Linda passed away from Lewy-Body Disorder.
She served many wonderful Sunday dinners, often with produce from her garden. She was involved at St. Paul’s Lutheran helping in the school library and with Vacation Bible School. As a lifelong Lutheran, she spent all of her life caring for others.
She leaves behind children Wess and Jolene Gray, Linda and Bill Reck, grandchildren Nicci and Chris Crowley, Shona and Charles Runnels, Glenn and Michael Brown, Bill and Abbie Reck, Lauren and Corey Keller, Steve Reck, and great grandchildren Kara and Mason (Runnels), Gabriel and Amita (Crowley), Emersyn (Brown), Harlan and Thatcher (Reck), and Everlynn (Reck).
She lived longer than her contemporary Queen Elizabeth II.
Obituaries are posted, in part, due to the generosity of The Commons.
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