Obituary
Gretell Gloria King

Gretell Gloria King was born on April 20th, 1929, in the village of Trinityville, in the parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica in the West Indies. She was the sixth of 10 children, born to Henry Chung, an immigrant from Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, and Beryl Daley, from Great Bay in the parish of St. Elizabeth, Jamaica.

She was predeceased by 8 of her siblings: Luna Downie, Cecil Chung, Sidney Chung, Neville Chung, Garfield Chung, Vincent Chung, Causwell Chung and Noel Chung. Her surviving sister, Carmel Thibault, lives in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

Gloria was an active child keeping up with her brothers who enjoyed catching fish by hand in the local creek. At the age of 12 a local plantation owner, Major Cause, arranged for her to apply for a government high school scholarship. There were only two scholarships for each parish, and Gloria was successful in being awarded one of the two scholarships available for students in St. Thomas. She attended St. Andrews Presbyterian High School for Girls in Kingston, and there she studied hard and learned many of life’s lessons. She told how nervous she was when the other girls in her dormitory would stone the mango tree in the school and arrange an illicit mango party after "lights-out". She knew if they got caught, she would lose her scholarship!!

In 1945 she passed her University of Cambridge School Certificate examination achieving a "Very High" standard in English literature and religious knowledge. After two extra years in the senior class she obtained her University of Cambridge Higher School Certificate with passes in botany, zoology, Latin and history! This enabled her in 1948 to travel to London, England to be the first Jamaican nursing student to complete the four-year nursing certificate at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Barts is the oldest hospital in the world still in operation having been founded by Rahere in the year 1123!!

Once Gloria obtained her nursing certificate from Barts in 1954 she completed midwifery training and obtained her gynecological nursing certificate at the Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital in London, England. Over the years she has remained in touch with the very first baby she delivered at the Mill Road Maternity Hospital in Cambridge, and that baby is now 70 years old living in Great Abington, Cambridgeshire, England.

Her first marriage to Noel St. John from Barbados during her days as a student produced a daughter Anne, who was raised by her paternal grandparents in Barbados. Dr. Anne St. John, MD, is a currently a pediatrician and privy counsellor in Barbados. From time to time, Gloria used to visit Barbados to stay with her daughter and meet other members of the St. John family.

After her nursing and midwifery training in England, Gloria had a wide range of career experiences. In 1956 she was a registered nurse in Jamaica and in Barbados, working at the General Hospital there. For two years she was employed by the Italian Grimaldi Siosa shipping line to be the children’s nurse on the Ascania and Irpinia ships which carried immigrants and their families between the Caribbean and Europe.

Gloria also pursued nursing internships in the United States and worked at St Joseph's Hospital in Portland, Oregon, at Orange Memorial Hospital in New Jersey, and at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. She recalled her surprise as a Jamaican in finding in the 1960's that the adult patients in the Baltimore hospital were segregated into black and white wards, although segregation did not apply to her work on the pediatric ward.
Unable to continue her residence in the USA, in 1966 Gloria made the decision to move to Canada and was employed at Kingston General Hospital in Ontario, as Head Nurse on the Surgical Floor. The hospital agreed that she should take a "Hospital Nursing Service" certificate program at the University of Toronto, which she completed in June 1966.

On the weekends during the summer Gloria and her Jamaican friends would attend the Kingston Cricket Club for their weekly matches in Kingston and Ottawa, Ontario. This is where she met, Martin King, a cricketer from England and an engineer working at the local polyester fiber plant at Millhaven, Ontario. Martin King became Gloria's second husband. They were married in the Queens University chapel in Kingston, Ontario on April 20th, 1968, and travelled to Bermuda for their honeymoon!! In 2018 they celebrated 50 years of marriage by returning to Bermuda for a holiday together. This time they did not take a flight from Montreal, they took a cruise ship from Norfolk, Virginia, and were able to enjoy a week's cruise as well as a visit to their previous haunts and old friends in Bermuda.

Later in 1968 Martin resigned from Millhaven Fibers to work for the Ministry of Technology in England and pursue further graduate studies at the Manchester Institute of Science & Technology. Gloria was appointed as Head Nurse of a new Kidney Dialysis Unit at Withington Hospital, Manchester where the building of sterile dialysis machines for individual patients was a continuous challenge. In April 1971 Gloria gave birth to a son Andrew “Andy” King, and in the following year the family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where Martin was appointed as an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba.

In Winnipeg, Gloria worked initially part-time on the surgical wing at Victoria Hospital, but then was appointed full-time Unit Manager and Clinical Resource Nurse in the adult rehabilitation unit at the Riverview Health Centre, a community hospital in the City of Winnipeg. She enjoyed working in the rehabilitation unit for long hours because she explained that this was not palliative care. Invariably each patient led to a positive outcome and happy discharge.

Her commitment to work was evident. One very snowy day in the middle of winter in Winnipeg the buses and all traffic had stopped as the roads were covered with over a foot of snow. How was she going to drive to work? That was impossible!! So, she called the City of Winnipeg and told them to send a snow plough to our home so she could go to work. I will never forget seeing her climb up into the cab of the snow plough that day and off she went to work under impossible conditions!!

During this period our son Andy enjoyed growing up playing hockey in the winter and soccer in the summer. He attended a French immersion program from Grade 1 onwards and completed his international baccalaureate diploma program while in high school in Winnipeg. In her spare time Gloria, who was a proficient knitter, volunteered her time at the local community center to teach knitting and to promote literacy.

While living and working in Winnipeg, Canada, Gloria kept in touch with her family in Jamaica and between 1978 and 1993 she invited three of her nieces, Annette Cheong, Jackie Spence and Elizabeth (Liz) Chong to come and live with us in Canada while they studied at the local universities. This required a lot of adjustment to survive the long and cold winters in Winnipeg, but they completed their studies, established Canadian friendships and advanced their careers. Annette and Jackie are mothers, have families, work long hours and have moved their families from Jamaica to Florida. Liz, who was a keen soccer player, was selected to play for the Manitoba provincial women's soccer team at the Canada Games in 1993 and on returning to Jamaica played on the Jamaican "Reggae Girls" World Cup soccer team during the preliminary rounds in 1994. So Gloria's love, encouragement, support and family commitment has extended into many fields of endeavor in different locations around the globe.

In the year 2000 Martin accepted a faculty position at North Carolina State University, and so he and Gloria moved from Winnipeg to Raleigh, and Gloria no longer continued her nursing practice. She enjoyed being an activity volunteer at Springmoor Retirement Community when she lived nearby on Sawmill Road, Raleigh. In addition, she volunteered at NC State University to teach cooking, knitting and English language skills to the partners and families of international students who were studying at the university.

Gloria was highly dedicated to Martin, her husband, and Andy, her son who for over two decades has lived near Paris, France. She was a meticulous homemaker; she maintained an immaculate home, followed daily routines, and could prepare many delicious dishes given her early experience with both Jamaican and Chinese cooking.

Gloria has one grandson André, who lives in New York, and in February 2022, she and Martin became the proud grandparents of twins, Cassandra and Julian, who live with their parents, Andy and Frida, near Paris, France.

Gloria also maintained an admirable reputation of being highly committed to her siblings and having a great love for the extended family of numerous nephews and nieces residing across the globe. She will be remembered for her unforgettable generosity for giving gifts especially at Christmas time. Members of her family in China remember the strength, love, generosity and resilience Gloria always showed to find them, visit them and greet them in Shenzhen. They say that the "Zhang family love cannot be separated, no matter how far it has to travel around the world".

Gloria as the global traveler, accompanied her husband Martin on numerous trips to England, Mexico, France, Poland, Turkey, India, Hong Kong, Australia and the People’s Republic of China, where he has served as an adjunct professor advising graduate students and teaching summer school at Donghua University, Shanghai for 20 years.

Back in the 1920's before Gloria was born, her father sent his first two Jamaican born sons, Cecil Chung and Sidney Chung, when they were less than 10 years old, to live with their uncle in Shenzhen, China. With the Japanese invasion and subsequent civil war in China contact with these two brothers was lost. It was only in 1983 that contact with the family was reestablished and Gloria learnt that her oldest brother Cecil Chung (张水思) was a soldier in the Chinese Communist Party army and was captured by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist army where he was tortured and lost his life. He is now remembered in Shenzhen as a "National Hero". The second brother, Sidney Chung (张慎理) married and had six children. Gloria visited Shenzhen in June 2012 to meet with her many Chung (Zhang) family relatives. It proved to be an epiphany. Since that time, Gloria has visited her family in Shenzhen many times between 2013 and 2019.

Her 90th birthday celebration, was a major undertaking organized by her son, Andy, and family members in Florida. The 2019 gathering in Pembroke Pines, Florida, included over 40 family members who travelled from New York City, San Jose, California, Canada, Jamaica, France and Barbados, to share in fellowship, good food & family home visits.

During the past 5 years, Gloria experienced a loss in physical mobility and an ability to communicate due to arthritis, peripheral neuropathy and dementia. Being confined to a wheelchair, had a negative impact on her quality of life, rendering her more and more dependent on others in her day-to-day life. So, it is appropriate at this time to express sincere thanks to all the friends, family, physicians, nurses and caretakers who have given her dedicated support and empathy to keep her comfortable as she transitions to the next life.