Ermagene McLellan Gorley
September 23, 1925 – May 19, 2022
OBITUARY
Gene Gorley, a resident of Spokane Valley since 1958 and well-known as “Grandma Gene” in the Central Valley School District, has passed away at 96. She died quietly in her sleep several weeks after suffering a severe fall.
Her full name was Ermagene, though most folks addressed her just as Gene. She was born in 1925 to Elmore and Mattie (Dennis) McLellan in Nyssa, Oregon and then lived many years in Nampa, Idaho where she grew up as the middle of three children, made countless friends, graduated high school, went to the Methodist church and became a career girl at the local theater. She married Richard (Dick) Gorley there, an Army Air Corp veteran, in 1946. Gene and Dick had three children: Pam (1947), Christy (1950) and Rick (1958). In 1958, when Rick was just a baby, the Gorley family moved to Spokane, settling in the Valley. Dick resumed work in Spokane and Gene became a full-time homemaker. She also became an active and lifelong member of Valley Methodist Church where she found inspiration and had wonderful memories of the fun she and Dick had for years with friends through the church’s Couples Club.
Pam, Chris and Rick all went through school in Spokane’s Central Valley School District. Dick Gorley passed away in 2004. Gene’s brother Donald McLellan and her sister Maxine Hickox are both deceased.
Gene had a big, colorful personality. With a great sense of humor, she relished laughter and enjoyed little more than being the life of the party – make that any party! She could keep up with the best of them in telling a story or joke, sometimes even the salty ones. She loved the TV show “Murder She Wrote,” saying she always appreciated a good murder mystery. She loved the Spokane sunsets, the lilacs, and seeing snow-covered Mt. Spokane from her home's front window. And though Gene often professed her dislike of cooking, she made a killer Sunday pot roast – and always had home-baked cookies for Pam, Chris and Rick when they got home from school. But it may be the dancing that Gene loved most all of her life. Some of her kids’ favorite memories include Gene and Dick dancing together, both with huge smiles on their faces. Man, could those two jitterbug! In recent years, Gene fancied herself dancing on the tables of Brighton Court: be gone pesky walker.
Though always a busy lady, Gene still found time for volunteering in her church and community, including many seasons collecting donations via the Mothers March of Dimes even long after that organization's name had changed. And she spent many years as an election worker in her local voting precinct, an activity she so enjoyed.
Gene was known to like dressing cute and with a bit of flair. One rarely found Gene without a pretty scarf tied around her neck (at one point, her kids found more than 100 scarves in her drawer). She chose outfits by the color and day of the week – Fridays were red – and for their youthfulness. She generally ascribed to the rule of not wearing white after Labor Day – and her favorite color was green, to match her eyes. In her younger days, Gene had a closet full of high heel shoes and matching handbags. In recent days she loved wearing her Seahawks tee-shirt with jeans and stylish sneakers; and her burial attire included a purple Old Navy tee-shirt that had “GIRL POWER” emblazoned on the front.
Some of Gene’s happiest days were when she came to be known as “Grandma Gene” on the playgrounds of various Central Valley elementary schools, namely University, Keystone and McDonalds. As a noon aide/playground supervisor, she got to monitor the playgrounds over the lunch hour and also help with the lunch service, adding other tasks over the years. She began her service with the school district in 1966, retiring in 2009. In the 43 years in between, Gene made life-long friends and loved generations of children, some from the early years ultimately having their own children who went to school also knowing Grandma Gene. She loved the hugs, the teasing, the runny noses, the scraped knees, the misbehaved, and the dodging of balls; she loved it all. When she retired at 84, due primarily to failing eyesight, she proclaimed it to be one of the hardest things she ever had to do. She cherished and never discarded the hundreds of cards from or pictures drawn by “her kids.”
Gene lived by her own rule of never using the O-word (meaning “Old”) with which her children and friends generally complied or else suffer a playful rebuff. But the family was heartened in Gene’s final days that she acknowledged her readiness to be welcomed into heaven, planning to join Dick, her mother Mattie, and her dear old friend Mary Rothgeb, in particular. Gene met life's tribulations as she embraced its joy, in her own way and her own time.
Gene is survived by her three children: Pam Schillinger of Mineral, Washington; Chris Gorley of Seattle; and Rick Gorley of Concord, California. Plus, she felt blessed to have 9 beautiful grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.
Final arrangements were made through Thornhill Valley Funeral Home, with Gene being laid to rest alongside husband Dick at Spokane's Greenwood Memorial Terrace.
The family wishes to thank the wonderful caregivers at Brighton Court Assisted Living where Gene lived since 2018, and Hospice Care of Spokane for their loving oversight of Gene’s final days. And with special gratitude to family friend Diane Stark of Spokane who continued her love and care for Gene through her last days.
