Evelyn Ward Gay

Evelyn Ward Gay was born in Girard, Georgia, and grew up in Waynesboro as one of five children of the late Hugh Lamar Ward and Nina Royal Ward. The top honor graduate in her class at the Waynesboro High School, she was employed for a short time by the Burke County Department of Public Welfare and at the same time was a writer for the Waynesboro True Citizen and the Augusta Chronicle moving shortly to Emory University in Atlanta. She became a staff member of the War Bond Division of the Federal Government and editor of the state's War Bond News joining the staff of the Emory University School of Medicine soon thereafter. In 1944 she married Dr. Brit B. Gay, Jr., of Atlanta. They spent the year 1945-46 in Sacramento, California, where Dr. Gay was on the staff of the Sacramento County Hospital. He was subsequently assigned as a ward officer to Moore General Hospital in North Carolina, and after military duties in Texas was assigned to the Quarantine Service in the Panama Canal Zone, returning to Atlanta when their first child was two years of age. In later life after their three children reached school age, Mrs. Gay returned to her first love, writing. She wrote many feature articles for The Atlanta Journal from 1969-1971 and contributed articles to the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia for several years. She is the author of a biography of Lucian Lamar Knight, founder of the Georgia Department of Archives and History, published in 1967, and The Medical Profession in Georgia, 1733-1983, published in 1983 and widely distributed in medical libraries across the country. Mrs. Gay is a past member of The Atlanta Press Club, The Georgia Writers Association, The Dixie Council of Authors and Journalists, The National League of American Pen Women, The Atlanta and Georgia Historical Societies, The American Association for the History of Medicine, and the Auxiliaries of the Atlanta, Georgia, Southern and American Medical Associations. Mrs. Gay has traveled widely around the world with her husband in recent years where they have visited at hospitals and met with physicians from many countries, contributing articles about their travels to the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, including visits to Moscow, Russia, the Princess Grace Children's Hospital in Monte Carlo, and General Hospitals in Australia and New Zealand. Her family consists of Dr. Brit B.Gay, Jr., of Atlanta, a retired member of the staff of the Henrietta Egleston Hospital for Children and the faculty of the Emory University School of Medicine, and three children, William Brit Gay, a retired college professor, and his wife, Nora Howell Gay, of Atlanta; Dr. James C. Gay and his wife, Dr. Elizabeth Pierce, both of Nashville, Tennessee; and a daughter, Susan Gay (Andrews), of Radnor, Pennsylvania, a medical publisher, and her husband, attorney Jonathan Paul Andrews; and three grandchildren: Emelia Marguerite (Emmy) Gay, of Nashville; Kathryn Rose Andrews (Katie), and Paul Brinton Andrews, of Radnor, Pa.; a sister-in-law, Anne Ward Boicourt, of Huntington Beach, California; and several nieces and nephews. Funeral services for Mrs. Gay will be held at 2:00 pm Sunday September 11, in the chapel of A. S. Turner and Sons with entombment in Floral Hills Memory Gardens. The family will receive friends Sunday from noon until time of the services at A.S. Turner & Sons.


Funeral Home:
A. S. Turner & Sons
2773 North Decatur Road
Decatur, GA
30033