GLADYS LEVIS ALLEN

I married into becoming friends with Gladys Levis. Robert and Gladys Levis were neighbors and close friends with my future brides parents, Dr. Donald and Olga Bottom. My wife, Caroline Bottom, grew up with little Gladys (aka Sister) and spent a great deal of her time playing in the Levis household in Fairmount Addition, on the limestone bluffs above the Mississippi river. When Caroline and I decided to get married, it was big Gladys who insisted on hosting a wedding rehersal luncheon at their stately mansion. It was at this luncheon that I remember her telling me how thrilled she was that we were marrying each other...".two artist's marrying, how interesting your lives will be," Gladys mused. Throughout our early years of marriage she always inquired as to our creative endeavors when we were together. She had a way of encouraging and inspiring at the same time. I always inquired about her weaving, had she been working in fiber? As the years stretched out, our meetings were fewer and further in-between because of family, then children, grand-children and travel, but when we did meet the wonderful sparkle in her eye was always present and she always made us feel that our art-work was something special. I will always be greatful for her curiosity for our artistic vocations, her voroucious appetite for wanting to try to understand what it was we were trying to communicate with our clay and glass and her ability to inspire us to be the unique individuals she knew us to be. We loved her very much!