Obituaries

• Gloria Sullivan lived a longer life than any U.S. President and any known member of her family tree. Born in 1924: in that year, a loaf of bread cost 9 cents, a half gallon of milk cost 27 cents - delivered to your house, a gallon of gas cost 11 cents, a new Chrysler car cost $1,395, and a new house cost $7,720.00. The average income was $2,196.00. Life expectancy was 54.1 years. The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played for the New York Yankees and Ty Cobb played for the Detroit Tigers. Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States. J. Edgar Hoover was appointed Director of the F.B.I. Russia’s Lenin died. George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” made its debut. Men and women in their 80s and 90s at the time could tell you vivid eyewitness accounts of living through the Civil War, as veterans of historic battles and as civilians. Many elderly African-Americans in Detroit had been born into slavery in the South, and had vivid memories of toiling in the plantation cotton fields as “property” of their masters. Younger men were veterans of the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, and World War I. Movies were in black and white, silent, and could be seen only at movie theaters. The television had not yet been invented. Prohibition was in full force and the start of the “Great Depression” was five years away.

• Gloria (Lamb) Sullivan was born a fifth generation Detroiter, with roots in the historic Irish Detroit neighborhood of Corktown, descended from Irish immigrants who came to Detroit in the 1840s and some possibly earlier. Although Detroit was founded by Cadillac in 1701, the city burned to the ground in 1805, so her descendants were among the new pioneers rebuilding Detroit.

• Youth activities: at ages 4 to 6, she took the interurban (rail transit) with her mother and grandmother to the family cottage at Fairhaven, Michigan, on the north shore of Lake St. Clair (the cottage had no electricity, plumbing, or heat; kerosene lanterns were used for light at night). At her Detroit homes, first on Vancouver Street and later on Wisconsin Street, she had a toy train set, toy soldiers, toy Indians, and dolls as a child. At the house where she lived on Vancouver Street, she recalled that a horse-drawn milk cart delivered milk to her house and a horse-drawn bakery cart delivered baked goods. She recalled that the horses knew which houses to stop at, without any prompting from the cart drivers. She was also involved in Girl Scouts, baseball, basketball, horseback riding, archery, fencing, bowling, snow skiing, ice skating, tap dancing, sewing and knitting. She played the piano and violin. She was a member of the “Jimmy Allen Flying Club,” flew in an open cockpit biplane, and regularly attended the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade in Detroit, followed by a premier of the newest Shirley Temple movie at the Fox Theatre. She recalled listening on the radio with great anticipation to the Detroit Tigers play the Chicago Cubs in the 1935 World Series, the first World Series ever won by the Tigers. She traveled to World’s Fairs in Chicago and New York. She particularly remembered the 1939 New York City World’s Fair, where she went to the top of the Empire State Building, saw the Radio City Music Hall and the “Rockettes,” took a boat ride around Manhattan, saw stage plays, saw one of the earliest television sets, took a tour of the French luxury ocean liner, S.S. Normandie, and while in New York City, where she by chance happened to stand within a few feet of the nation’s first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. At age 16, Gloria took a car trip with her mother and others (a station wagon with attached trailer) out West to Mt. Rushmore (the carvings of the four presidents not yet completed), Yellowstone Park, and Flathead Lake, Montana, at a time when there were no interstate freeways and travel was mostly on dirt and gravel roads. She had a frightening encounter with a grizzly bear that visited their campsite at Yellowstone Park. She regularly took cruises on the Great Lakes during the “golden age” of Great Lakes steamships, including trips to Tashmoo Park (on Harsen’s Island, Michigan), Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Mackinac Island, and the Upper Peninsula, including the Jesuit Martyrs Shrine. When she lived on Wisconsin Street, in Detroit, there were no paved roads north of Eight Mile Road. The young man who cut the lawn across the street was Eddie Tolan, who had won two Olympic gold medals in track [100m (“world’s fastest human”) and 200m] at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Living a short distance down the street from Gloria was Nancy Brown, a nationally-famous newspaper columnist, who was later honored on Belle Isle, with the construction of the Nancy Brown Peace Carillon. Also across the street lived the Gillis family, whose sons later became prominent judges in Michigan.

• Her confirmation name was St. Therese de Lisieux (St. Theresa of the Little Flower).

• Graduate of Gesu Grade School and Immaculata High School, both in Detroit; also attended St. Mary’s of Monroe H.S., for Grades 9 and 11, and Girls Catholic Central H.S. (Detroit) for Grade 10. While rooming at St. Mary’s of Monroe, her roommate’s father was Dr. Jenkin, a Detroit physician who (unknown to Gloria at the time) had already delivered as a baby Gloria’s future husband, Robert E. Sullivan, as well as his two brothers, James and Joe, and two sisters, Ann and Mary.

• During W.W. II, Gloria was a member of the U.S.O. and helped organize U.S.O. dances, for military personnel on leave, at Gesu Parish and at Selfridge Army Air Field; she was also a Red Cross volunteer and wore a yellow Red Cross uniform dress with white cuffs and a white collar. It was during W.W. II that Gloria joined her first bridge club and started a pastime she enjoyed her entire life. She had been a member of some bridge clubs that started during W.W. II and continued into the 21st century.

• 1946 Graduate of the University of Detroit - College of Commerce and Finance, with B.S. in economics, minor in accounting; during her senior year, she was elected by her classmates to be a class officer - Secretary of the College of Commerce and Finance at the University of Detroit. She was a member of the Phi Gamma Nu sorority. During her senior year, she was elected President of the sorority and served as a Delegate to the National Convention, in Chicago.

• Worked at General Motors Corporation during World War II, in the Accounting Department, which had been moved out of the GM World Headquarters building to a secret location to thwart German spies attempting to gain access to GM’s highly classified military equipment production numbers - Gloria was given U.S. government top secret clearance for access to this data

• Worked for the Detroit Edison Company, in the Accounting Department, where she worked on an early version of the computer, programming it with punch cards

• Member of the Providence Hospital Guild, provided volunteer services and fundraising for Providence Hospital, starting with the original hospital in Detroit (on West Grand Boulevard at 14th Street), and later, the new hospital in Southfield.

• Member of the Christ Child Society (volunteer services for abused and neglected children; operates school and temporary shelter home in Detroit); Member of Board of Directors, Financial Secretary, Chairman of Financial Policy Committee

• Member of the Colony Town Club (Cancer Loan Closet provides medical supplies for indigent cancer patients)

• Member of the League of Catholic Women (operated charitable community and social service agencies in Metro Detroit, now known as Matrix Human Services)

• Member of the Detroit Economic Club

• Member of the Women’s’ Auxiliary to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (she had two great uncles, Henry and John Lamb - her mother’s father’s brothers - who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, which qualified her for hereditary membership)

• Member of parishes: St. Theresa (Detroit), Gesu (Detroit), Presentation (Detroit), St. Scholastica (Detroit), St. Regis (Bloomfield Township)

• Member of North Rosedale Park Civic Association and its Women’s Club; member of North Rosedale Park Women’s Bowling League

• Member of Project Hope (saves lives by bringing improved health and medical care to some of the world's neediest people, particularly children)

• Life Member of the Detroit Yacht Club

• Member of the Lawyers Wives of Detroit; elected Corresponding Secretary in 1971; elected First Vice President in 1975

• Member of the Auxiliary of the Discalced Carmelites (supports a worldwide order of nuns headquartered in Rome, Italy). The order was established in 1593, by two Spanish saints, Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint John of the Cross. Sister Lucy dos Santos, one of the three child witnesses to Our Lady of Fatima, in Portugal in 1917, became a Carmelite nun.

• Member of Women of St. Regis

• During her adult life, she traveled extensively in Europe, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Brazil, Mexico, Bahamas, the Caribbean, and extensively in the United States and Canada. On a plane trip to Atlanta, Gloria and her husband Bob Sullivan sat across the aisle from and spoke with Coretta Scott King, the widow of the slain civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although she never traveled to the planet Mars, Gloria Sullivan’s name is digitally encoded on a compact disc on each of the two NASA Mars rovers, “Spirit” and “Opportunity,” which today both sit on the surface of Mars.

• In 2001, Gloria Sullivan was honored by the Detroit Tricentennial Committee (Detroit 300) as a member of a Detroit pioneer “Tricentennial Early Family,” reflecting her status as a fifth generation Detroiter with roots in Detroit’s historic Corktown neighborhood, going back to early 1800s.

• In 2010, Gloria Sullivan was honored by the Detroit Historical Museum, when she was invited to be a guest of honor at the opening of an exhibit on the history of Corktown. A dining room chair that had been in her family since the early 1800s and a three generation photo (of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother) were featured in the exhibit. She appeared at the opening of the exhibit and spoke to the gathered crowd, telling stories of her memories of Corktown and stories passed to her by her mother and relatives.

• Member of “Next” Birmingham-based senior citizen organization, where Gloria attended lectures on current events and topics of interest

• As a resident of the Waltonwood senior community in Novi, starting in 2015, Gloria Sullivan participated in arts and crafts, the community choir, card games, St. William Catholic Church activities, and outings to restaurants and community activities.

Family will receive friends Tuesday 2-8 p.m. with a Scripture Service at 7 p.m. at A.J. Desmond & Sons, 2600 Crooks Rd. (between Maple and Big Beaver), 248-362-2500. Funeral Mass Wednesday 11 a.m. at St. Regis Church, 3695 Lincoln (at Lahser), Bloomfield Hills. Visitation at church begins 10:30 a.m. Memorial Tributes to the Christ Child Society.


GLORIA SULLIVAN CHRONOLOGY:

14 April 1924 Born; lived at 4508/4510 Vancouver St., Detroit

1931 to 1947 lived at 18035 Wisconsin St., Detroit

1938 Graduated Gesu Catholic Grade School, Detroit

1938-39 Attended St. Mary’s Academy of Monroe

1939-40 Attended Girls Catholic Central High School, Detroit

1940-41 Attended St. Mary’s Academy of Monroe

1941-42 Attended and graduated Immaculata High School, Detroit

Worked at General Motors Corporation during World War II, and
worked at Detroit Edison Co. up to her marriage

1942 - 1946 Attended and graduated University of Detroit

5 July 1947 Married Robert E. Sullivan at Gesu Catholic Church, Detroit

1947 - 1952 Lived at 4508/4510 Vancouver St., Detroit

1952 - 1958 Lived at 19459 Sorrento St., Detroit

1958 - 1986 Lived at 19465 Bretton Drive, Detroit

1986 - 2015 Lived at 30335 Oakview Way, Bingham Farms, MI

2015 - 2018 Lived at Waltonwood Twelve Oaks, Novi, MI

19 October 2018 At peace with the Lord


~~Lovingly submitted by the family.