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Joe Hornaday
A Ray of Light Keeps Life Full and Happy
For almost 90 years, Greensburg resident Mary Ray has worked to make her community a better place.
Ray grew up east of Versailles in Ripley County, where the current Versailles State Park is now. Later in her life, she moved to Osgood and recently relocated to Greensburg.
“I’m just moving up the line,” Ray said of her journy north. “But I’m not going up any further than Greensburg.”
While she was a young girl, her mother worked as a schoolteacher. Ray noted that teachers in those days had to be strict at the Waterloo school. Until Ray reached high school, she was taught by her mother.
“So naturally, I graduated when I was 16,” she said with a smile.
To pay the bills once out on her own during the Depression of the 1930s, Ray worked at a restaurant. Money was tight as the economy strained, and Ray was unable to get away from her hometown much.
She was married in October of 1937, just two years after graduating. She had her first son in 1939.
Once in Osgood for a few years, Ray managed to snag a job at the local library, where she made a friend who played matchmaker and introduced her to her second husband. Though Ray was always busy during the weekdays, she did have some free time on the weekends, and after some coaxing she agreed to meet the man.
“I guess he was desperate,” Ray jested.
But it was not meant to last and years later, in 1997, she met someone who she wished to marry. Rather than making an appointment with her preacher, Ray said she cornered him in a hallway and eagerly asked to be married.
“That’s romance in the second stage,” Ray said.
During her life, she always stayed busy, whether it was at the library or selling Avon products for 20 years.
“You dont make any money if you don’t work,” she said.
Her relocation to Greensburg tore her away from her church, the First Baptist Church of Osgood, which she said she hated to leave behind. But she enjoys her new church, and now attends the Sandcreek Baptist Church.
Ray now fills her time by volunteering, and she leads a Bible study group at the Heritage House. After seeing a need for help at the Heritage House in her church bulletin, Ray immediately offered her services.
“I enjoy doing it, really I do,” she said. “We sing and talk and reminisce.”
Ray attributes her volunteer streak to her outlook and attitude.
“If you say you’re going to do something, you have to do it,” she explained.
After a day of volunteering, Ray wil return to her home, which is decorated with paintings that her mother made. According to Ray, her mother was both a painter and a poet. One of Ray’s favorite stories her mother wrote was “The Intoxicated Mouse.” The story tells the tale of a mouse who, after a family’s Christmas dinner, raids the table to sample the leftovers. Once into the champagne, the mouse gets tipsy and tries to escape once a person enters the kitchen. Though his escape is fraught with peril, he successfully escapes and decides to lay off the drink.
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