Gladys G. Everett, age 94, passed quietly on February 26, 2021 in Spokane Valley, WA where she lived with her daughter since 2016.
She was born July 15, 1926 in the family home in Dellvale, KS, the second daughter of Harold Hager and Golda (Heller) Hager who went on to have four more girls and two boys.
Gladys attended a one room school house in Dellvale then went on to high school at Clayton High School for two years before graduating from Norton High School in Norton, Kansas. After high school, she attended Ft. Hays Normal School for Teaching. She taught in the one room school for a couple of years before going out to Oregon to stay with family and work a summer job. During that summer she met Don Everett at a dance. At the end of the summer, she returned to Kansas. Don was persistent and after driving back to Kansas for the second time, she agreed to marry him. In September of 1950, they were married in Kansas. They returned to Milton Freewater to live for the next 66 years.
They had two children and Gladys was a fulltime mother and housewife, but she was also a very accomplished seamstress and spent several years sewing bowling shirts from home. She was an amazing cook for not only the family, but all of our friends were eager for a meal invitation. In the early 60’s they bought Pribe’s Garage and she added bookkeeping for the service station to her list of duties. She also cared for the Pribe family in their later years and in gratitude the Pribe’s left them the service station, a small apartment complex and their family home. Gladys was very proud of the home and her beautiful gardens, especially the roses that surrounded the home. It became the gathering place for many family get-togethers. After the children left home, she became an avid golfer. She and Don spent hours at the Milton Freewater golf course golfing together, as well as on numerous women’s leagues. Even as her body started to fail her, her mind stayed sharp until the end. Armed with her computer and later a tablet she was on Facebook and email daily keeping track of her great-grandsons and the rest of her family and friends.
In addition to her parents, she was predeceased by sisters Imojean, Phyllis and Vanetta as well as her husband Don in 2006. Surviving Gladys are her son Galen and his wife Pam in Bonney Lake, WA; her daughter Janet in Spokane Valley, WA; her granddaughter Katrina Terada and her husband Gregory and her two great-grandsons Jyler and Rysic Terada all in Auburn, WA.
A small service will be held at the Munselle-Rhodes Funeral Home, 902 S. Main St., Milton-Freewater OR on Saturday March 6th at 1:00 p.m. before she is laid to rest next to Don in the Milton Freewater Cemetery. Those who wish to remember Gladys in a special way may make a gift to American Heart Association in her memory. Arrangements were made by Munselle-Rhodes Funeral Home in Milton-Freewater.