Catching up with . . . Cecily Dray

By John Olesky (BJ 1969-96)

Cecily Dray, retired printer Terry Dray’s widow, has decided to stay in their Avon Park, Florida, home rather than move back to Massillon, as the children encouraged her to do. Massillon native Terry died Oct. 25, 2009 at the age of 70. He was a BJ printer for 33 years.

Paula and I visited Cecily in Avon Park during our Jan. 30-Feb. 13 annual stay on Siesta Key, off Sarasota , and were treated to lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Cecily says she has so many friends, including fellow Resurrection Lutheran Church members, from their nine years in Avon Park. They came to play golf, then bought their Avon Park house to rent to golfers but eventually decided to live in it year-around.

Terry loved to play golf. He golfed nine times a week, every day and twice on Saturdays and Sundays. He was good at it. On the wall of their Avon Park home are framed certificates and trophies for his FIVE holes-in-one! He’s only nine behind Tiger Woods and light years ahead of the rest of us. Cecily said she "played at it" three days a week. Photos of their life together fill the walls.

Cecily and Terry, who both have children from their previous marriages, met at the ITU union hall because Cecily was hired at Exchange Printing and had to fill out union papers. Terry was deeply involved with union work.

Terry's daughters by his late wife Patricia are Terri Snyder (48), Cathy Kauffman (46) and Cindy Gottfried (44). They live in Massillon within a few blocks of each other. So does Cecily’s daughter, Melissa Hardesty (46). Cecily’s son, Sean Gaffney (47), lives in Zephyrhills, Florida and works as a financial analyst for Price Waterhouse in Tampa. Terri and Cindy bought the Massillon store after Terry and Cecily moved to Florida. Cathy is an office manager for Land o'Lakes and Melissa is a billing specialist for a drug store chain.

The SportSStuf store, in Towne Plaza in Massillon, specializes in retail and wholesale screen printing and custom embroidery. The front of the store is retail and the work is done in an area behind the retail operation.

Terry and Cecily mortgaged their Massillon house to open the store in 1996 while both were employed elsewhere. “At the end of the first year,” Cecily said, “we thought there wouldn't be a second year. Slowly but surely we built it into a very nice business. We sold it to Terri and Cindy who had worked with us and knew the business. Times are tough financially but they are still able to pay the bills, mainly through the wholesale side of the business because they supply other similar stores in the area and do a lot of company orders.”

Terry and Cecily received a Lifetime Achievement Award for service to the Community of Massillon.

For their 25th wedding anniversary Cecily wrote this poem, which she repeated at his memorial service:

___________________

We were both printers, a man's field Terry would say,
when we met in the union hall on a cold Ohio day.
He was a union officer, a high mucky muck,
I had to pay union dues, wasn't that luck!
Printers were he-men, he knew that was so,
they were named Bubba, Big Jim and Roy Joe.


Our meeting was doomed, it's so sad to say,
I thought he was pompous, he thought I was "gay."
"Call if you need me," he said with a smirk.
Then left town for a golf trip...he was such a jerk!


But God, in his wisdom, He graced us with smiles,
And soon there emerged a romance of miles.
He drove every day, 60 miles, little sleep,
And even back then, gasoline wasn't cheap.


He sent lavender roses, a path to my heart,
and redeemed himself nicely for a very rude start.
Two months and counting, love in bloom, true and deep,
He proposed, "Marry me! I can't eat, I can't sleep!"
While he thought to himself, gasoline isn't cheap.


So we married in June, lavender roses galore,
And vowed we would face what life held in store.
Together we founded a new family,
Four teen girls, and one boy, it was seldom glee.


But we laughed, cried and loved,
As God smiled from above,
And with His wonderful grace,
We've arrived at this place.


So we thank you dear friends for joining us here,
Cherish your loved ones, hold them close, they are dear.
After 29 years, our love still runs deep.
And I don't have to tell you
Gasoline's still not cheap!


God's blessings to you and yours for joining us here
in celebration of life.

___________________

My late wife Monia and later Paula and I would have reunions with Terry and Cecily during our February stays on Siesta Key. Terry and Cecily drove about 90 minutes each way from Avon Park for the get-togethers. We would sit on the deck overlooking the beach and recall our BJ days together. Dave and Gina White, and Don Bandy, would join us. At times during my Sea Castle stays I would run into another Composing retiree, Don Pack, who cleaned the pool and lived in Sarasota.

Paula and I didn’t have our annual face-to-face reunions with Don Bandy and the Whites this year, although I did talk by phone with all three while we were on Siesta Key. Even with the coldest and rainiest of my 13 Florida Februaries, the Sarasota area has a plethora of events that enabled us to:

-- Watch hundreds of manatees huddle in and dozens of spotted eagle rays leap three feet out of the 75-degree water near the Tampa Electric plant discharge.
-- Take in Greek festivals in St. Petersburg and Sarasota and visit the Greek sponge diving town of Tarpon Springs.
-- Watch Lipizzaner stallions perform at their permanent home in Myakka City and take in a water ski show on Sarasota Bay.
-- Attend brass and jazz concerts and a few days later a Valentine’s dance at First Methodist Church in downtown Sarasota.
-- Listen to former world-traveling jazz pianist/singer Lillette Jenkins Wisner at a senior center.
-- Visit both the Ringling Art Museum and the Ringling Circus museum.
-- Listen to free outdoor country music at Phillippi Estate Park in Sarasota.
-- Lunch on the St. Petersburg pier.
-- Visit my late wife Monia’s uncle in New Port Richey and Paula’s aunts in Orlando and Tampa.

And, on the way home, I met West Virginia University 1950s basketball star Willie Akers at Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C. His teammate was Jerry West. Maybe you’ve heard of him.

Click on the headline to see photos of Cecily Dray and other pictures of our trip.


See Terry’s obituary in the BJ Alums blog.


Read my October 2009 BJ Alums tribute to Terry, who was my Composing makeup man when I was assistant State Desk editor, later newsroom makeup man and still later TV Editor.