By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Every person has a legacy. You may not know what your impact is, and it may not be something that you can write on your tombstone, but every person has an impact on this world — American novelist Dara Horn
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Gayle Beth Wilkinson, 57, who died Saturday, Nov. 25, proves that anyone can can touch many lives in a community.
Gayle was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana,on June 21, 1966 to the late William Edward Wilkinson and Marilyn Foxworthy Wilkinson. The fifth child with two older brothers, two older sisters and one younger brother.
Even as a baby, Jena Pace, Gayle’s eldest sister of 14 years, recalls that she was “the best of all” of the siblings who was a good, positive, happy, fun-loving and hardworking person.
On June 21, 1966, when Jena was a senior in high school, and Gayle was not yet 3, their family moved to Glasgow as their father worked to open the R.R. Donnelley factory.
She was arguably the sibling with the closest relationship to Gayle. She recalls doing lots of outdoor activities like hiking, kayaking, “treasure hunting” in the drained Barren River Lake basin and mushroom hunting, specifically Morels, colloquially called dryland fish, in the woods.
“We did a lot of stuff outdoors,” Pace said through teary eyes. “Of course I’m older and slower but she was always patient with me, and we would go hiking in the winter time [and] she would always make sure I had my socks on because I never liked to wear them. She’d come over and say ‘You got your sock on?’”
Her father died in 2010, which left Jena and Gayle to take care of their mother who was struggling with Alzheimers and Dementia. For nine years they cared for Marilyn, when she did in 2019, the pair decided to be “adventurous,” spending their weekends going to places “of interest” like state parks or walking their dogs on the beach.
“We’d get in the car and wouldn’t even know where we were going,” Jena said. “We’d just find something of interest.”
“One day Gayle said ‘I think we’ve eaten in every restaurant in Bowling Green, we’re going to have to hit Nashville now,’” she added.
In 2019 they also made plans to travel to England as Gayle was an “avid follower” of the royal family and a “true Anglophile,” but COVID and personal circumstances prevented them from ever completing their journey across the Atlantic.
“We never got to go to England, but that was her dream,” Jena said.
She also recalls Gayle as someone who enjoyed her personal space despite her innate magnetism.
“I remember one hug I got from her and that was the day she left the hospital,” Jena said as her voice cracked with emotion. “I said ‘I know you’re not going to like this but I’m going to hug you anyway’ and we hugged each other. I think that was the first time she ever hugged me back.”
Gayle’s service was at Hatcher and Saddler on Nov. 29. Jena, Martha Martin, Gayle’s best friend of 31 years, and Margie Patton all recall the visitation, which started two hours before the service, was extremely well attended; a testament to the vast impact of her life.
“The visitation was two hours and the line didn’t stop until the service started,” Martha said.
“She just wouldn’t have believed it,” Pace said. “She wouldn’t have believed that she was as loved as she was,” Jena added.
They said most people know Gayle either from her time working at Wilderness Studio or at the Barren River Animal Welfare Association.
Martha Martin first met Gayle in 1992 when she started working at the studio. She recalls that originally Gayle had planned to stay there for only six months, but ended up staying roughly 15 years, during which time they covered schools in 10 counties.
Martha said they became fast friends and would often quote movie lines to one another.
“Our desks were just a few feet from each other so we got to be good friends,” Martha said. “She became part of our family…she was at every one of our family functions.”
She became like an aunt or a sister to them and was often the last one to leave family functions; her nickname was “Wilky” to them.
“She was truly a sister,” Martha said. “Family becomes the people you pick sometimes and when you find someone like her it’s special.”
Of course Gayle’s story cannot be told without her tenure at BRAWA. Jena recalls that even as a young girl she loved animals and that love only grew as she aged. In 2007, after many months of begging, Margie Patton, one of the volunteers who helped establish BRAWA, hired Gayle.
Margie said, her eyes filled with emotions, “it was the best decision she ever made.”
Connie Greer, general manager at the shelter, said she was one of the few people that has done virtually every job available at BRAWA.
“She’s touched every bit of this building,” Connie said.
Gayle was instrumental in offering surgeries to pet owners in Hart County and to help start the low cost vaccination program at the shelter.
Even though she only knew Gayle for seven years she said “it will be awhile before she is all cried out.”
“It’s going to be really tough,” Greer said. “She made a lot of friends, she helped a lot of people and a lot of animals.”
“I especially am going to miss her. She was my rock. When I first started here I had a lot of shelter background…but I had never been in shelter management before [so] Gayle was my go-to. I would go to her and say ‘how would you have done this? Did you ever have this situation?’ She would always have some funny story to tell me and we would laugh,” she added.
Connie recalls the operating room filled with laughter and music as she worked closely with the doctor and Gayle’s constant whistling.
“Her presence is here, we all feel it,” Connie said. “I catch myself whistling, and I never whistle, but I have been just whistling tunes.”
In the end, Jena, Martha, Margie and Connie all said that Gayle was a “very compassionate person” who was willing to help anyone if they asked. They all said her passing will leave a hole at BRAWA, in the Glasgow community and in their lives.
“I have a very short list of best people and she was on it,” Patton said.
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