Gail Lunsford

Gail Lunsford – An Autobiography

After graduating from St. Genevieve’s on June 6, 1964 I went to the beach and drank my first beer. I wanted to live in New York and be a starving writer.

At the end of the summer I enrolled in UNC-A with Arnia (Anya) Halldorson and began the pursuit of English Literature as my major. I worked at Thurston Henry’s Art Studio on Ravenscroft Drive. I met artists from the 1930’s Ash Can School of Art and listened to their stories as they drank warm beer and ate pickled eggs. The war in Viet Nam was escalating, and I became more involved in the peace movement than deconstructing the English Novel.

I moved to Durham and took courses at Chapel Hill but again found the anti-war politics more intriguing than Social Darwinism in “Sister Carrie.” My parents thought me a lost cause.

I moved to Charlotte, NC and enrolled at UNC-Charlotte. I married Jim Eades. My Lit. Professor wanted to publish my socialist interpretation of Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale,” but I thought the concept of “publish or perish” too, too bourgeois.

I had one beautiful daughter Cady, named for the suffragette, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

My husband and I separated – I got our beautiful redheaded daughter, he got the green car.

The war in Viet Nam ended, though probably not because of my efforts.

I finally realized my goal of moving to New York City. I realized that English Majors by definition always starve to death in New York. I went to work for a computer software company. I started a book club that focused on the G.U.B.s (Great Unread Books) such as James Joyce, Thomas Mann and Edith Wharton.

I became a computer consultant for a legal services company. Ultimately I became their Information Systems manager and office manager. I received a paralegal diploma from New York University. I read a great deal of 19th and 20th century history. Winston Churchill replaced Christopher Marlowe as the love of my life.

I married Steve Bardwell who was able to convince me that I was not destined to be Churchill’s paramour since Winnie had died many years before.

Steve and I began our delicious life together on a sunny Saturday in November of 1984. Steve, with his two sons James and William, and I, with my daughter Cady, moved into a large old house overlooking the Hudson River.

Our first years together were highlighted by: a hurricane in September, an earthquake in October and my daughter’s teenage years. Cady changed her name to Kate and became a basketball player. We survived each event by Grace and hopefully with grace.

I took up rock gardening with a passion using my St. Genevieve’s Latin to order Viburnum ‘Burkwoodii’ from the local nursery. I edited the Rock Garden Newsletter until I realized I liked English Country gardens more than hypertufa troughs.

By 1995 Steve and I were empty nesters with James an attorney in Denver, Kate working for a software firm in Boston and William finishing at Carnegie-Mellon. We began to rethink what we wanted for the next 50 Years.

In 1997 Steve and I moved to Madison County NC and built our home on a piece of property that had been in my family since the late 18th century. Kate changed her name back to Cady and moved to Asheville in 1998. She met her husband here and delighted us with the wonderful Cassidy Rose Jenkins, our new millennium grandchild. She has a plastic basketball hoop in the driveway and an imaginary friend named “Earhut.” Definitely a child after my own heart.

Steve and I started Wake Robin Farm Organic Breads about 5 years ago as a way to help the local Farmers’ Markets and draw attention to the need to support small family farms. Our business has evolved into quite the intense spring through fall Cottage Industry.

At an August of 2003 dinner party at Mrs. Warlick’s home I listened to M.E.’s description of what fun a 40th reunion would be and how simple it would be to organize it. “How hard can it be to find a few women we haven’t seen in 40 years?” My greatest gift has always been the ability to follow the advice of those far wiser than I.

I have enjoyed each wild step in this process called life, and I have enjoyed each re-connection with the St. Genevieve’s “New Frontiersmen”, class of 1964.