Bio, McRory, George & Gloria, Eagle County, Colorado Contributed by Allen Best October 10, 1999 George and Gloria McRORY (The Times, 23 July 1999, p.11, by Allen Best) (Used with permission) Sometimes trying, never boring Gloria and George McRory spent the last 20 years of 50 years of marriage in Vail Valley George and Gloria McRory reached 50 years in their marriage a few weeks ago. It wasn't always easy, says Gloria, a principal in Avon-based Peregrine Press. In the end, though, couples can grow closer together, as they move past the frictions of raising children and of independent goals. "If you don't get closer in your older years, you're really in trouble," she added. They both grew up in Connecticut. George was an older fellow, having been in the service, and he was interested in Gloria's older sister. Several months later he called back to get a date with Gloria. "I told him that I was taking my niece to the movies," Gloria recalls. "He said he would come along, and then we could go to the party together afterward." They did, and they've been going together ever since. They had four children, two of whom live in the Eagle Valley and two of whom are buried in the cemetery in Eagle. Unlike most women of today, Gloria never had to work for a living while the children were young. George's family had a mechanical engineering and plumbing business. However, she did start volunteering at a nearby museum of science and natural history. They took winter vacations to New England, their summer vacations at the ocean. Not that Gloria was ever enamored by the ocean. "Some people are mountain people, others ocean people. Even though I had been a lifeguard, I never did like swimming in the ocean, and once I was working at an aquarium and saw what inhabited the ocean, I liked it even less. I still don't like to eat fish." That's Gloria - always an opinion, whether it's what's on page 2 of the newspaper or how traffic should be directed on the street that goes by Wal-Mart and City Market. She thinks it should be one-way traffic. George is the same way, always keeping busy, always an opinion. Together, they came to Vail in 1979 for a ski vacation. George got bored with the skiing, and he put in an application to Vail Associates. Before he had returned to Connecticut, there was a message waiting for him: Did he want to go to work as a project estimate at the new ski area then being down the valley? So they returned to Eagle County, where George worked at Beaver Creek, and in a few years, Gloria and son Clayton started their own printing company. In time, George went on the Avon Metropolitan District Board of Directors, and Gloria became an Avon councilwoman. Today, they live in Singletree - Geezer Gulch, to some. In fact, her printing business has been around long enough now that last week she was going through her fifth move. The office is being relocated while the building next ot Wal-Mart in Avon that was brand- spanking new just 10 years ago is razed to make way for something bigger and better. "I remember it was about 11 years ago that somebody asked me if I wanted to be in a new club for people over 50 in the Vail Valley. I said there must be just three of us. But you know what, they have 520 members in that club now." But the valley's youthful exuberance is what keeps Gloria here and reasonably happy. "I like the vitality here," she says. "When I go back to Connecticut, all my old friends are just playing bridge and shopping." George concurs. He recalls going there last year to visit friends, including two of his peers in nursing homes. Being in the Vail Valley keeps him younger, he believes. "How could I explain to those guys that just two days before I had been going 35 mph down a ski slope?" he says. Part of that, the couple believes, is just the camaraderie of friends, an easy thing to acquire in a place like this. =================================================== Contributed for use by the USGenWeb Archive Project (http://www.usgenweb.org) and by the COGenWeb Archive Project USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access.