Gladyse Louise Ritter Meikle NEELLEY

April 30, 1929 - Oct 29, 2023

*Obituary

Gladyse Louise Meikle-Neelley was born, April 30, 1929, to George Douglass Dickerson, II and Bertha Louise Beverly Dickerson of Conway, Arkansas. After graduating from Conway High School, Louise studied acting at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, Illinois, where she met her first husband, James Ritter, and performed at the Chicago Railroad Fair of 1948-49. When Mr. Ritter left to pursue an acting career in California, Louise chose to provide a more stable income for her children by teaching English and drama at several small high schools in Arkansas. Before long, however, she became interested in the growing field of speech therapy and decided to pursue a master's degree in speech pathology at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Missouri, where she met her second husband, James Meikle. After graduating from SIU, Louise enjoyed working as a speech therapist in elementary schools wherever Dr. Meikle's professional career took the family, notably in Jacksonville, Illinois, and Lawrence, Kansas, the city to which she returned in 1973 after her divorce from Dr. Meikle. In 1977, Louise followed her third husband and true love, Dr. James Neelley, to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where he took the position of head of the Speech Pathology and Audiology Department at the University of Alberta. Louise loved her new home and found great fulfillment in her position as Supervisor of Student Clinicians for the University Hospital until her retirement in 1994.

Having once aspired to be an actress, Louise was a life-long enthusiast of all the performing arts and therefore adored living in Edmonton, the "City of Festivals." She was active in several civic organizations, including the Seven Arts Club and the Edmonton Cat Fanciers Club, of which she was a board member and treasurer for many years. Having been raised by a teacher herself, Louise was an erudite connoisseur of the English language and of literature; she never met a book she could bear to see abandoned or abused, and her personal library easily filled two rooms of her home. Louise also had a passion for crossword puzzles and other games of intellectual skill. Her daughter, Michele, often referred to her as "a walking dictionary" and credits Louise with engendering in her a love for the arts and literature (particularly fantasy) and for being the author and perfector of her writing talent. Louise will be remembered by her friends in Edmonton as an engaging conversationalist and a lover of cats and all things cultural.

Louise is preceded in death by her parents; her husbands; her siblings, George Douglass Dickerson, III of Conway, Arkansas, Beverly Dickerson Buendtner of Conway, Arkansas, and Donna Susan Dickerson DeGeorge of Stockton, California; her son, Richard Cecil Ritter Meikle of Bremerton, Washington; and her daughter, Rebecca Louise Ritter Meikle of Sacramento, California.

Louise is survived by her sister, Salliejane Dickerson Rainey, of Little Rock, Arkansas; her daughter, Michele Dorria Meikle of Camdenton, Missouri; and her granddaughter, Donna Louise Meikle Kerns of Evansville, Wyoming.

Louise slipped peacefully from this life on the evening of Oct. 29, 2023, at the age of 94.

Published by Log Cabin Democrat on Nov. 10, 2023.

Contributed on 11/14/23 by hawkinsdonna48
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Record #: 1509316

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