Two years ago in 2020, the granddaughter of Dr. N.Y. Gulley, featured two years ago and then last week in this column, was ready to send me or thought she had sent me an e-mail letter which I never received because I surely would have treasured it. Thankfully, her daughter, Dr. Gulley’s great-granddaughter saw the oversight last week and sent me her mother’s letter.
(Since then the great-granddaughter has spoken with her mother, who now lives in Switzerland and will celebrate her 89th birthday this year, and has added some more details, including that it may have been someone from the American Bar Association who visited Dr. Gulley after his retirement.
(Also, “Out of curiosity, I asked if she knew what had become of the book of letters written by her grandfather’s former students. I was delighted to learn she has it in her bookcase, in her home in Switzerland. This is also where she has a photograph of her grandfather which was taken on his 90th birthday. He is standing next to his favorite cow Nellie. We both laughed remembering that photo, because while he appears quite frail next to Nellie’s imposing stature, it is clear he is very happy. Mom said she thought he wrote “Man on his 90th., cow on her 20th.,” on the back of the photo, but without searching for the photo, she couldn’t be absolutely certain of Nellie’s age”).
Dear Mrs. Pelosi,
I was very interested in your article about Dr. N.Y. Gulley.
My name is Gloria Gulley Hoekstra, and Dr. N. Y. Gulley was my grandfather.
I was born on his 78th birthday and grew up in his home on “Faculty Ave.” My parents, Donald and Sibyl Gulley, moved from Florida to Wake Forest, a few years before my birth, in order to live with and assist my grandfather after his wife died.
My father and his father had a law practice in town and my father was Librarian for the Law School until it temporarily closed because of World War II.
My grandfather was already retired when I was born, but he remained very active in college affairs. He was very popular with his former students and many returned to visit him over the years. They always remarked on his sense of humor and how he made learning such fun. There were many gifts in his home from various graduating classes. Among the items I recall, there were two Morris chairs; a floor lamp; a leather desk chair; a silver engraved ”Loving Cup;” a walking stick with a silver handle; and a Day bed.
One year the graduating class had the best gift idea. They arrived at his residence on Faculty Avenue, with a large truck. In it he found a lovely Gurnsey calf. He was absolutely delighted! He named her Nellie, and brought her to his dairy farm in Forestville. The dairy herd were all Red Poles (without horns) so little Nellie soon became lead cow!
Aside from teaching, farming was his main interest. He owned three farms near Wake Forest. One was located at Horse Creek, and was operated by a tenant farmer, another was located near Franklinton, and was managed by his son Tom, (whose son Tom, lives there now,) and then there was the dairy farm at Forestville. The dairy was located near the railway line where the road crossed the tracks.
My grandfather would drive out to the dairy farm every other day in his two-seat Chevrolet, so he could talk to the manager. I frequently went along, and we enjoyed visiting Nellie and the two large Percheron horses he kept there.
As far as I know, my grandfather remained chairman of the Wake Country Board of Education until his death. One of his duties included signing the pay vouchers for all the teachers in the county. My job was to turn the pages of the sheets of vouchers, so he could get the job done quicker.
My mother often spoke of the time the North Carolina Bar Association sent a young man to tell Dr. Gulley how he was to run the law school.
My grandfather listened to what he had to say, and thanked him for coming.
Then he told the young man to come back and tell him how to run a law school, once he too had taught as many successful lawyers, serving judges and members of Congress, as he had. Not long afterward, all law schools in NC had to conform to new regulations.
I believe it was in celebration of his 85th birthday, that a group of former students contacted as many fellow law school graduates as possible, to request they write a letter to Dr. Gulley, telling him of their memories of his classes, or how he had influenced their life. A large number of wonderful letters were received and bound into a beautiful book, which was presented to him. That was such a thoughtful gift for a great teacher!
He and I celebrated our birthdays together until I was 12 years old and he was 90. He died soon after his 90th birthday in 1945.
The beautiful house on Faculty Avenue was sold to Dr. George Mackie for his medical practice. My parents and I moved to the fieldstone house along Durham Road which they built many years prior to his death.
Sincerely,
Gloria Gulley Hoekstra
(After Dr. George Mackie’s death one of his sons, James Wilson Mackie, made a gift of that beautiful Victorian house to the Wake Forest Historical Museum. Because they had no use for it, the museum in turn sold the house to the Cooke family, who restored and renovated it. The house is now the office for their business.)
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Dr. Gulley retired from Wake Forest College in 1935, however he briefly returned to teach law during World War II. Spring semester of 1943 the law students had dwindled to only 27. By the end of the semester nearly half of those had left for the War. The Wake Forest Law School did not close during the War but joined with the Law School at Duke that was facing a similar decline. Together, the two law schools combined faculty and students to keep the law classes going at both institutions.
As a side note, the brown leather desk chair that is mentioned in Mrs. Hoekstra’s letter is now in the Museum on display in the Law exhibit along with Dr. Gulley’s typewritter and desk set.