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Gloria Janell (Ast) Ratcliff
Mar 3, 1939 - Jan 15, 2016
Posted by Mel Owings

© Parks Brothers Funeral Home

January 15, 2016, Gloria passed peacefully away at the Seminole Care and Rehabilitation Center where she had been a resident for the past two years. Gloria battled Progressive Supranuclear Palsy for the past 5 years. She was 76 years old.
 

She is survived by her two sisters, husband, son, two daughters, and seven grandchildren -- Marilyn Boevers, Sharlene Thomas, Glen Ratcliff, Blake Ratcliff, Charity Ratcliff, Peggy Ratcliff, Virginia Ratcliff Aid, Kurtis Ratcliff, Analea Munoz, Georgia Ratcliff, Carolina Ratcliff, Jesse Harris and Kasey McKee.


Gloria was born in Yukon, Oklahoma at the Old Mercy Hospital on March 3, 1939. She was the third child of Jacob and Pauline Ast.

She attended primary school at St. Joseph Catholic Academy, graduated as Salutatorian for the class of 1958 from Union City High School, and attended Central State College for one year. After Central State, she worked at Southwestern Bell Telephone {AT&T today} prior to meeting and marrying Glen.

Gloria or Aunt Glo, as her many nieces, nephews, and great nieces and nephews called her, was a whirling dervish organizing, cooking, driving tractors, helping her children with school projects. Nothing was impossible. No difficulty to great. Sacrifices were expected.

The early years were rough financially. In 1965 after 4 years of wheat farming with a few cattle near Piedmont, Glen and Gloria bought the home place in Paden. They started by going between the two places setting up everything to begin the cattle business. I recall sleeping under the stars while we worked out of a one room shed while we built fences, cleared hundreds of acres of trees, built ponds, and cattle lots, and so much more. At the Ratcliff's with Gloria ,there were no jobs that were womens' work and there was no work that was mens' work. Charity helped Blake haul hay. Blake washed dishes. Gloria drove the tractor, fixed the fences, and help birth calves.

And, Gloria truly was the wife working side-by-side with her husband. Keeping the books� Working with the accountant... Finding some new way to earn a dollar or save a dollar... Trying to save him from charging bulls as they crashed through the lot fences...

She was a member of the Prague Methodist Church where she taught Sunday School for many years and supported a never ending set of activities and causes including leading baking Kolaches (by the thousands each year) for the annual Prague Kolache festival for years. She was also a member of the Home Demonstration Club and the women's Red Hat Club. She worked at the Prague Dry Cleaners for years just to be with friends. At almost 40, she studied and became fluent in Spanish.

While we were at home, she was always joining with the neighbors to put together potluck dinners with games and conversation that all of us -- the Nixes, the Davenports, the Dunhams, the Stricklands, and many, many more joined. We all warmly remember these events. And, who can forget running around the house with mama chasing us around to clean up, 'Company is coming' See there are lights on the hill!' Her heart and will was to do things right'.

Even with her body failing and her mind cheating her she would remember small things to organize or do and have us running to see to the details. Really, it was her deal.

Even after she moved to Seminole Care and Rehabilitation, things would pop up that she had organized before she left. Glen was worrying about a barn roof that was ripped off and then he checked and she had it insured. He proudly told Charity, 'You know your ma set that up!' She is best known by all for 'getting it done'.

To exceed what others would do' To be more, than anyone expected' And time and time again, she did just that.


The funeral will be at 10:00 a.m. at the Prague, Oklahoma United Methodist Church and the interment will be at the old Mathewson Cemetery, in Piedmont, Oklahoma {founded by some of the original Ratcliff's shortly after the Land Run} at 2:00 p.m.
 

Services are under the direction of Parks Brothers Funeral Home.  
 
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