Dorothy Mae Ray

January 2, 1931 - January 1, 2015

Funeral services for DOROTHY MAE (STRADLEY) RAY, 83, will be held at 1pm Tuesday, January 6, 2015 at the Colyer Funeral Home Chapel with Reverend Vickie Kintzel officiating. Burial will follow in the Hillcrest Cemetery in Lingle, Wyoming. January 1, 2015 was the day our Lord chose to call our mother home. Memorials may be made to the Junior Diabetes Association. Visitation will be Monday from 3pm to 5pm and the casket will be open briefly following the service. Arrangements are under the direction of the Colyer Funeral Home and friends may send condolences to the family at www.colyerfuneralhome.com. Dorothy was born to Bessie Hayes and Jack Stradley on January 2, 1931 in Nelson, Nebraska. She lived in and around Lincoln, Nebraska until she met her husband. On June 5, 1947 she married Ernest Sylvester Ray also known as Bud Ray. They had three children, Jimmie Marie, Ruth Lorraine, and Sandra Sue. He husband and three daughters became her sole purpose for living. She raised them to form them into the loving, caring girls they are today. Her step-mother Hazel Schlinske welcomed her as her own also. Her main goal in life was to raise her girls. She was a stay-at-home Mom. Her girls would be delighted coming home from school and smelling her homemade bread a block away. After they married and left home Dorothy went on to get her high school diploma and then went on to work in the GED department at Eastern Wyoming College. She went to live with her daughter Sandra in August of 2011 due to poor health. Sandy was the best care giver for Mom. Mom was so loved by all. She belonged to the Rock Hound Rock Club spending many hours with the group on outings. She loved her trips to Prairie Winds Casino where she usually came back home with more money than she took with her. She loved to sew, making many things for family and extended family. She was loved by so many and made them her family. There was always room for one more. Dorothy is survived by her three daughters Jimmie (Don) Aipperspach of Lingle, Wyoming, Ruth Hays from Glenrock, Wyoming, and Sandra (Butch) Produit of Gillette, Wyoming; eight grandchildren; twenty-eight great grandchildren; and ten great-great grandchildren who were all the apple of her eye; sisters Wanda Holmes of Gain Valley, Missouri, Esther Westkamp of Lincoln, Nebraska, Mary Melache of Cedar Edge, Colorado, and Edith Bennet of Ft. Washakie, Wyoming; four brothers Homer Hunsburger of Riverton, Wyoming. Charles (Butch) Walbridge Jr of Hardy, Nebraska, Clifford Stradley of Riverton, Wyoming, and Gilbert Walbridge of Concordia, Kansas, and extended family Linda White of Torrington, Wyoming and Diane Crook of Gillette. She was preceded in death by her mother Bessie Stradley, her father Clifford (Jack) Stradley, stepfather Charles Walbridge, stepmother Hazel Schlinske, her husband Ernest (Bud) Ray, great grandson Josiah Hays, great granddaughter Annie Sanches, brothers Robert Walbridge, Albert Walbridge, Gary "Mike" Walbridge, sisters Betty Rimpley, and Lucille Verley, and son-in-law John Hays.