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Anonymous
10 years ago

Gladys brothers were Travis, Tracey and Johnny. Her sisters were Clettes,Lavelle,Lillian, Rhetha and a baby girl Effie who died shortly after birth.

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Anonymous
10 years ago

Gladys son was using a 1954 pink and white Cadillac, driving the blue moon boys around for about three months. One night Gladys woke up Vernon saying,"Vernon I dreamt our boys car caught fire" Vernon was very scared as Glady's dreams always turned out to be prophetic. Sure enough her son called and the cars brake line had caught fire. Elvis did buy Gladys a Cadillac too. But how could Gladys be a learner driver with hundreds of people always watching the house. Maybe it became too much. What other learner driver is being viewed by so many? What a predicament! No privacy....not ever again. Gladys pink Cadillac is said to be the most famous car in the world today.

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Anonymous
11 years ago

In 1936 Gladys was home in her shotgun shack with her very close friend Annie Presley {Sales Presleys wife]. Vernon and Sales were out having a drink. The weather turned strange, the women knew a bad storm was coming, but did not realize that the fourth deadliest tornado in the United States history was about to hit. It was the 5th of April in the evening and Gladys passed her infant son to Annie and left in search of Vernon and Sales to find them and bring them safely home. She did find them, but Vernon was very drunk and she had a hard time getting him home. When she got him home he passed out and slept through a massive tornado that touched town soon after they were all safe. It was severe. It leveled 200 homes and killed 216 people and injured 700 people. Everywhere around their shack was wiped out. Gladys and Annie tended to the injured and took in everyone they could find in that night. The women tended their wounds and got them hot food and cared for them. Gladys was amazed that they were spared.She thanked the Lord for this miracle. She certainly saved Sales and Vernon that night too, by going out and getting them home, as every other dwelling around was flattened. No doubt she thanked the Lord that the infant Elvis was safe. Gladys was brave going out to get those men that evening, because the weather would have been ominous,scary and foreboding, but she went. Remember this was the fourth deadliest Tornado in the history of the United States, and the sound would have been eerie but she still went out. Gladys was amazing!

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Anonymous
11 years ago

When Gladys was a teenager working in the cotton fields, an unsavory man , who was also picking cotton there,led her to believe he loved her and asked her to go with him. She had no reason to believe he was bad news and finally she fell for him.{ this was before Vernon}. She eventually went to his shotgun shack, after a time they were lovers, Gladys believed his stories that he would marry her. Gladys returned to the fields, working and one day went to the mans shack. There she found he had a wife, who had just come back from a trip away. He had been caught red handed. Instead of slapping him across the face she delivered him a knockout punch. As if having to work two jobs isn't hard enough. To be stuck in the great depression isn't hard enough. To have a bedridden mother with tuberculosis isn't frightening enough, and a father who hard work was taking it's toll. This man who tricked Gladys was very cruel. She made sure that when she left there he wasn't in a standing position! In those days to get over a bad person you made a novaculite elixer. Novaculite is a stone for sharpening knives.You put the stone in water over night, drink that water the next day and it takes away all your emotional ties to whoever has hurt you or whoever you don't want in your life and it works. Gladys knew what to do.[Old native Indian medicine] She also believed that what ever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Gladys was a person who did not want to be rich. She just wanted to have enough to go around and to be able to share. Because sharing and being with the ones closest to you is the most wholesome nourishing thing.Her Dad Bob Smiths money did not last long so he made moonshine. With 8 children and a sick wife to look after he had to get some money. So he did it. The money he got from it was not for gain, it was for survival. Without the money from the moonshine, one of his family may have actually died. And in the great depression, people did die of starvation. Gladys had love in her heart, plenty of happy cheer for her friends and family. Elvis would have probably called to Chi energy.. It is something that caused everybody who got to know her, to love her company. Out of the Smith girls Gladys and Rhetha were the most beautiful. Gladys was as close to Rhetha as she would later become to Elvis.Now that's saying something! So when Rhetha died, if she did not have Rhetha's son Harold Loyd to be with her to love and support and to remind her of Rhetha, her life would have been worse. But he was there,[ and if not for Elvis, Glady's in fact I believe would have died of a broken heart, from losing Rhetha, and it is well known that Harold was a very dignified person and grew into a beautiful gentleman. Now she is on the spiritual tundra with Rhetha,and Elvis and now I see from the above post with Harold too.

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Salimah
11 years ago

People who knew Gladys when she was young, said she was lovely natured. She had 7 siblings. She was a devoted christian. She worked in the cottonfields. Stoop labor, hard, hard work picking cotton all day in the sun. She had a second job as a teenager, home helper for a local family, helping a mother look after four young children, like a maid but the family loved her and she loved them. She earned little bits of money and would spend it on material for clothes and made her family clothes, on the local community sewing machine. She became a talented seamstress. She ran up overalls for the males in her family and farm dresses for her self and her sisters. She would make some fancy clothes sometimes. She made her mama nice nightgowns as her mama was so sick with T.B. For a treat for her family Gladys would also buy licorice sticks. Her siblings loved it when it was Gladys pay day. Not much money but Gladys would make her family happy with small niceties and clothes. One brother calved out of wood soap molds for Gladys and she also made her own soap and was good at it. She knitted also, knitted socks for the whole family.. Other then her part time job she worked with the rest of the family sharecropping. Before she married Vernon she was called Gladys Love Smith. Her father let her and her siblings go to the dance hall at Tupelo. Gladys could dance! She had learned to do the charleston. A popular dance in the late 1920s. She could sing too. A rich velvet voice, enchanting, she had soul too. She sung spirituals, gospel soul, rythum and blues, country, etc. On the front porch of the old shacks friends would gather and sing, Gladys favorite thing to do. She could cook too. When she was 18 the great depression struck. It didn't make that much difference to Gladys because she had always been poor. Basically the family lived off the land, had their own vegetable garden, preserved food, had their own cow and hens. It was lucky that Gladys had made so many clothes for the family, as she loved to do because the great depression that hit would mean any small bit of money must go to but flour. All banks closed taking the money with them in 1929. Gladys would use the flour sacks to make underwear for the family also curtains, she was inventive. Later she work at the Tupelo Garnment Factory. She had had years of sewing, she became talented with it, it was also her passion. If the Great Depression hitting wasn't bad enough, her Dad went blind and couldn't work the cottonfields, soon after he got phnemonia and died. Gladys did all that was humanly possible to help her family, but they got split up. They ended up with relatives but in the same town. Gladys Uncle was a pastor. Everyone helped each other back then. Gladys went to church a lot. Even so times were very hard, she did the best she could, AND was fun, kind and would love to cook for anyone she could, she was resourceful. She got a job in that factory sewing, soon after met Vernon and fell in love. When I see people write about Gladys with a sour face in those photos taken just before she died, they have to understand she was so so ill in those photo,s and she knew she was dying, leaving her son who was exposed to the world behind scared her. She wasn't going to be able to protect him. And who elses son is that exposed! She knew he was going to be the biggest thing. She knew him best. Also she had a sister Rhetha, she loved loved her so much, well Rhetha was in a coal fire explosion and burned to death. That nearly killed Gladys. Gladys would take in Rhetha's son, later on he was given a job at Graceland by Glady's, before she died. Lloyd was his name. Annie Presley, Sales Presleys wife described later that Gladys when hearing about Rhetha's accident collapsed and went into severe shock shut down. The hurt she felt from her precious sisters cruel death was just too much for her. But she recovered to support her sisters boy. Gladys got married. Vernon went to jail. Gladys had to work in the cotton field picking cotton while Vernon was in jail. Gladys would leave Elvis in the care of a african american grandmother Rossetta and pick cotton. Gladys loved the negro people and they loved her. They were christians and so was she. They would duel with songs which was fun. Gladys knew that the negro people had out of this world singing voices and they knew that she was one white woman who match them which was a rare rare thing. And Gladys didn't mind showing off her voice at all. It was awe striking.She was part cherokee indian part jewish very exotic. It makes work easier if you sing, makes it go by fast. especially in the late 1920s in the cottonfields. She was special, full of life and love and kindness, hard, hard work too. As Elvis once said "She is my everything".

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David Loyd
11 years ago

That son of Gladys's sister Rhetha is my Grandfather. His name is Harold Loyd born 4/22/1929 and died 1/18/2002. Gladys not only had to deal with her own sisters death, but took in her child to raise as well.

User avatar
Salimah
11 years ago

People who knew Gladys when she was young, said she was lovely natured. She had 7 siblings. She was a devoted christian. She worked in the cottonfields. Stoop labor, hard, hard work picking cotton all day in the sun. She had a second job as a teenager, home helper for a local family, helping a mother look after four young children, like a maid but the family loved her and she loved them. She earned little bits of money and would spend it on material for clothes and made her family clothes, on the local community sewing machine. She became a talented seamstress. She ran up overalls for the males in her family and farm dresses for her self and her sisters. She would make some fancy clothes sometimes. She made her mama nice nightgowns as her mama was so sick with T.B. For a treat for her family Gladys would also buy licorice sticks. Her siblings loved it when it was Gladys pay day. Not much money but Gladys would make her family happy with small niceties and clothes. One brother calved out of wood soap molds for Gladys and she also made her own soap and was good at it. She knitted also, knitted socks for the whole family.. Other then her part time job she worked with the rest of the family sharecropping. Before she married Vernon she was called Gladys Love Smith. Her father let her and her siblings go to the dance hall at Tupelo. Gladys could dance! She had learned to do the charleston. A popular dance in the late 1920s. She could sing too. A rich velvet voice, enchanting, she had soul too. She sung spirituals, gospel soul, rythum and blues, country, etc. On the front porch of the old shacks friends would gather and sing, Gladys favorite thing to do. She could cook too. When she was 18 the great depression struck. It didn't make that much difference to Gladys because she had always been poor. Basically the family lived off the land, had their own vegetable garden, preserved food, had their own cow and hens. It was lucky that Gladys had made so many clothes for the family, as she loved to do because the great depression that hit would mean any small bit of money must go to but flour. All banks closed taking the money with them in 1929. Gladys would use the flour sacks to make underwear for the family also curtains, she was inventive. Later she work at the Tupelo Garnment Factory. She had had years of sewing, she became talented with it, it was also her passion. If the Great Depression hitting wasn't bad enough, her Dad went blind and couldn't work the cottonfields, soon after he got phnemonia and died. Gladys did all that was humanly possible to help her family, but they got split up. They ended up with relatives but in the same town. Gladys Uncle was a pastor. Everyone helped each other back then. Gladys went to church a lot. Even so times were very hard, she did the best she could, AND was fun, kind and would love to cook for anyone she could, she was resourceful. She got a job in that factory sewing, soon after met Vernon and fell in love. When I see people write about Gladys with a sour face in those photos taken just before she died, they have to understand she was so so ill in those photo,s and she knew she was dying, leaving her son who was exposed to the world behind scared her. She wasn't going to be able to protect him. And who elses son is that exposed! She knew he was going to be the biggest thing. She knew him best. Also she had a sister Rhetha, she loved loved her so much, well Rhetha was in a coal fire explosion and burned to death. That nearly killed Gladys. Gladys would take in Rhetha's son, later on he was given a job at Graceland by Glady's, before she died. Lloyd was his name. Annie Presley, Sales Presleys wife described later that Gladys when hearing about Rhetha's accident collapsed and went into severe shock shut down. The hurt she felt from her precious sisters cruel death was just too much for her. But she recovered to support her sisters boy. Gladys got married. Vernon went to jail. Gladys had to work in the cotton field picking cotton while Vernon was in jail. Gladys would leave Elvis in the care of a african american grandmother Rossetta and pick cotton. Gladys loved the negro people and they loved her. They were christians and so was she. They would duel with songs which was fun. Gladys knew that the negro people had out of this world singing voices and they knew that she was one white woman who match them which was a rare rare thing. And Gladys didn't mind showing off her voice at all. It was awe striking.She was part cherokee indian part jewish very exotic. It makes work easier if you sing, makes it go by fast. especially in the late 1920s in the cottonfields. She was special, full of life and love and kindness, hard, hard work too. As Elvis once said "She is my everything".

User avatar
Salimah
11 years ago

People who knew Gladys when she was young, said she was lovely natured. She had 7 siblings. She was a devoted christian. She worked in the cottonfields. Stoop labor, hard, hard work picking cotton all day in the sun. She had a second job as a teenager, home helper for a local family, helping a mother look after four young children, like a maid but the family loved her and she loved them. She earned little bits of money and would spend it on material for clothes and made her family clothes, on the local community sewing machine. She became a talented seamstress. She ran up overalls for the males in her family and farm dresses for her self and her sisters. She would make some fancy clothes sometimes. She made her mama nice nightgowns as her mama was so sick with T.B. For a treat for her family Gladys would also buy licorice sticks. Her siblings loved it when it was Gladys pay day. Not much money but Gladys would make her family happy with small niceties and clothes. One brother calved out of wood soap molds for Gladys and she also made her own soap and was good at it. She knitted also, knitted socks for the whole family.. Other then her part time job she worked with the rest of the family sharecropping. Before she married Vernon she was called Gladys Love Smith. Her father let her and her siblings go to the dance hall at Tupelo. Gladys could dance! She had learned to do the charleston. A popular dance in the late 1920s. She could sing too. A rich velvet voice, enchanting, she had soul too. She sung spirituals, gospel soul, rythum and blues, country, etc. On the front porch of the old shacks friends would gather and sing, Gladys favorite thing to do. She could cook too. When she was 18 the great depression struck. It didn't make that much difference to Gladys because she had always been poor. Basically the family lived off the land, had their own vegetable garden, preserved food, had their own cow and hens. It was lucky that Gladys had made so many clothes for the family, as she loved to do because the great depression that hit would mean any small bit of money must go to but flour. All banks closed taking the money with them in 1929. Gladys would use the flour sacks to make underwear for the family also curtains, she was inventive. Later she work at the Tupelo Garnment Factory. She had had years of sewing, she became talented with it, it was also her passion. If the Great Depression hitting wasn't bad enough, her Dad went blind and couldn't work the cottonfields, soon after he got phnemonia and died. Gladys did all that was humanly possible to help her family, but they got split up. They ended up with relatives but in the same town. Gladys Uncle was a pastor. Everyone helped each other back then. Gladys went to church a lot. Even so times were very hard, she did the best she could, AND was fun, kind and would love to cook for anyone she could, she was resourceful. She got a job in that factory sewing, soon after met Vernon and fell in love. When I see people write about Gladys with a sour face in those photos taken just before she died, they have to understand she was so so ill in those photo,s and she knew she was dying, leaving her son who was exposed to the world behind scared her. She wasn't going to be able to protect him. And who elses son is that exposed! She knew he was going to be the biggest thing. She knew him best. Also she had a sister Rhetha, she loved loved her so much, well Rhetha was in a coal fire explosion and burned to death. That nearly killed Gladys. Gladys would take in Rhetha's son, later on he was given a job at Graceland by Glady's, before she died. Lloyd was his name. Annie Presley, Sales Presleys wife described later that Gladys when hearing about Rhetha's accident collapsed and went into severe shock shut down. The hurt she felt from her precious sisters cruel death was just too much for her. But she recovered to support her sisters boy. Gladys got married. Vernon went to jail. Gladys had to work in the cotton field picking cotton while Vernon was in jail. Gladys would leave Elvis in the care of a african american grandmother Rossetta and pick cotton. Gladys loved the negro people and they loved her. They were christians and so was she. They would duel with songs which was fun. Gladys knew that the negro people had out of this world singing voices and they knew that she was one white woman who match them which was a rare rare thing. And Gladys didn't mind showing off her voice at all. It was awe striking.She was part cherokee indian part jewish very exotic. It makes work easier if you sing, makes it go by fast. especially in the late 1920s in the cottonfields. She was special, full of life and love and kindness, hard, hard work too. As Elvis once said "She is my everything".

User avatar
Salimah
11 years ago

People who knew Gladys when she was young, said she was lovely natured. She had 7 siblings. She was a devoted christian. She worked in the cottonfields. Stoop labor, hard, hard work picking cotton all day in the sun. She had a second job as a teenager, home helper for a local family, helping a mother look after four young children, like a maid but the family loved her and she loved them. She earned little bits of money and would spend it on material for clothes and made her family clothes, on the local community sewing machine. She became a talented seamstress. She ran up overalls for the males in her family and farm dresses for her self and her sisters. She would make some fancy clothes sometimes. She made her mama nice nightgowns as her mama was so sick with T.B. For a treat for her family Gladys would also buy licorice sticks. Her siblings loved it when it was Gladys pay day. Not much money but Gladys would make her family happy with small niceties and clothes. One brother calved out of wood soap molds for Gladys and she also made her own soap and was good at it. She knitted also, knitted socks for the whole family.. Other then her part time job she worked with the rest of the family sharecropping. Before she married Vernon she was called Gladys Love Smith. Her father let her and her siblings go to the dance hall at Tupelo. Gladys could dance! She had learned to do the charleston. A popular dance in the late 1920s. She could sing too. A rich velvet voice, enchanting, she had soul too. She sung spirituals, gospel soul, rythum and blues, country, etc. On the front porch of the old shacks friends would gather and sing, Gladys favorite thing to do. She could cook too. When she was 18 the great depression struck. It didn't make that much difference to Gladys because she had always been poor. Basically the family lived off the land, had their own vegetable garden, preserved food, had their own cow and hens. It was lucky that Gladys had made so many clothes for the family, as she loved to do because the great depression that hit would mean any small bit of money must go to but flour. All banks closed taking the money with them in 1929. Gladys would use the flour sacks to make underwear for the family also curtains, she was inventive. Later she work at the Tupelo Garnment Factory. She had had years of sewing, she became talented with it, it was also her passion. If the Great Depression hitting wasn't bad enough, her Dad went blind and couldn't work the cottonfields, soon after he got phnemonia and died. Gladys did all that was humanly possible to help her family, but they got split up. They ended up with relatives but in the same town. Gladys Uncle was a pastor. Everyone helped each other back then. Gladys went to church a lot. Even so times were very hard, she did the best she could, AND was fun, kind and would love to cook for anyone she could, she was resourceful. She got a job in that factory sewing, soon after met Vernon and fell in love. When I see people write about Gladys with a sour face in those photos taken just before she died, they have to understand she was so so ill in those photo,s and she knew she was dying, leaving her son who was exposed to the world behind scared her. She wasn't going to be able to protect him. And who elses son is that exposed! She knew he was going to be the biggest thing. She knew him best. Also she had a sister Rhetha, she loved loved her so much, well Rhetha was in a coal fire explosion and burned to death. That nearly killed Gladys. Gladys would take in Rhetha's son, later on he was given a job at Graceland by Glady's, before she died. Lloyd was his name. Annie Presley, Sales Presleys wife described later that Gladys when hearing about Rhetha's accident collapsed and went into severe shock shut down. The hurt she felt from her precious sisters cruel death was just too much for her. But she recovered to support her sisters boy. Gladys got married. Vernon went to jail. Gladys had to work in the cotton field picking cotton while Vernon was in jail. Gladys would leave Elvis in the care of a african american grandmother Rossetta and pick cotton. Gladys loved the negro people and they loved her. They were christians and so was she. They would duel with songs which was fun. Gladys knew that the negro people had out of this world singing voices and they knew that she was one white woman who match them which was a rare rare thing. And Gladys didn't mind showing off her voice at all. It was awe striking.She was part cherokee indian part jewish very exotic. It makes work easier if you sing, makes it go by fast. especially in the late 1920s in the cottonfields. She was special, full of life and love and kindness, hard, hard work too. As Elvis once said "She is my everything".

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you are dearly misses and we know you are in a better place enjoying all your heavemly family ,Glays, Jesse, Elvis, Vernon, Presley

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mary
12 years ago

I admire Elvis for the love and respect he gave his mom.. Gladsy was a beautiful mom to Elvis. She worried and wondered if he was ok when he wasnt around her. .Knowing very well that her son had his life to live .But that never stopped her from being the caring mom she was. It would be hard having a famous son Making sure no one used him Or took Advanced of Elvis giving heart She was right about the colonel . Isnt it strange how moms seem to know everything regarding their sons and daughters?? Rest in peace Gladsy You were the best mom Elvis loved you

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marrey
13 years ago

Gladsy was a beautiful loving mother to Elvis and he loved her so very much That he wasnt the same after she died ...That was truly sad Im glad they are all together with Vernon Too....... Thankyou God for allowing Elvis and family in our lives ...watch over them precious lord,,,, RIP Elvis xoxox

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NORMAN CONLON
13 years ago

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Jeff Schrembs
14 years ago

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