Obituary of Juanita Pauline Gray

Juanita Pauline Gray was born March 12, 1936, on a farm near Yorktown, IA to Fred Elmo Wagaman and Amy Amelia McElroy. She passed away October 26, 2024, at The University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, NE.

Juanita received her education at Pin Oak Country School near Clarinda, Valley Country School north of Hopkins, MO, high school where she transferred in the middle of her senior year to Clarinda High school and received her diploma.  In 1967, she graduated from Iowa Western Community College as an LPN. She worked for Woolworth in Phoenix, AZ, Tip Top Curling Factory and NSK in Clarinda and several nursing homes in Clarinda and Shenandoah area. She retired from the Clarinda Treatment Complex.

On October 8, 1955, Juanita married her love, Robert Eugene Gray, in Clarinda, IA. To this union was born Debra Christine, Robert Eugene Jr., Ronald Lynn, Donna Elaine and Diana Sue.  When the children were young, they lived in Yorktown, IA.  Later they moved to a very large home (formerly 2 apartments) in Clarinda, with lots more room to live in and lots more love to give, they invited others to join our family.  We welcomed John Edgar, Mary Jolene and Danny Dee Lamb and Jody Wayne Husted. Mom and Dad always had room, and many more came and went for various lengths of stay.  It was a wonderful family to grow up in.  There were so many of us that if you got into a squabble with one, there was always another on your side.  At family dinners, laughter, and stories would abound.

Mom and Dad left their large home in 1976 and moved to a postage-stamp sized farm east of New Market. On this farm, they raised goats and exotic birds. They were also given runt pigs to bottle raise and bottle calves, not to mention baby wildlife to nurture and release. Area schools called them asking if they could bring students on tours. Mom would say yes and then call their adult children, usually Ronnie, Donna, and Diana as they lived close, to come and help with the tour.  Sometime people weren’t able to come to the farm, so they would take the farm to them.  One of mom’s favorite stories is about a man in a nursing home that was petting a goat and asked her, “what kind of dog did you say this was?”

One of the things Mom and Dad enjoyed doing was joining the Dorm of Doomers and decorating and scaring in the haunted houses. They loved road trips. Ones that should have taken one hour ended up taking three as they enjoyed traveling the back roads and looking at scenery.

Mom was a fabulous cook; her BBQ turkey and cranberry relish was requested at every Thanksgiving. She enjoyed having a vegetable garden and orchard and canning the bounty they reaped from them.  She also enjoyed crocheting baby blankets for her grands, greats and great greats when she was able.  She also crocheted beautiful doilies. By now you’ve heard they, them and mom and dad quite a few times.  That is because they did so much together that you couldn’t mention one without mentioning the other.  That is, until our dad passed, and mom was heartbroken and lost.  It took some time, but she came back to us and enjoyed her family again.  Mom and Dad would have been apart for 20 years in May 2024. The family finds great comfort in knowing they are together again.

Mom leaves behind her children: Debra Stanley, Robert (Amanda) Gray Jr, Ronald Gray, Donna (David) Shum, Diana (William) Roberts, Mary (Jeremy) Rucker, Danny (Holly) Lamb, and Jody Husted, brother Richard (Marcia) Wagaman; sisters-in-law, Mae Wagaman and Dorothy (Walter) Zimmerschied along with 23 grandchildren, 47 great-grandchildren, and 9 great-great-grandchildren and many, many more she included.

Preceding her in death were her parents, Fred and Amy Wagaman, husband Robert Gray, Son John Lamb; sisters, Carole Hummel and Eula Thomas and brother Paul Fred Wagaman.