Gladys Arlene Winn
May 13, 1921-Oct. 18, 2021
Palo Alto, California
Native Californian and lifelong Palo Alto resident Gladys Winn died peacefully at her home on October 18, 2021 at the age of 100. Gladys Arlene Liddicoat was born in San Jose on May 13, 1921, the daughter of Naomi Katherine Smart and Roy Leslie Liddicoat. Her mother was active in the Republican Women’s Club, Allied Arts Guild, and other area charities and her father was an educator and administrator in Bay Area schools. Gladys began studying classical piano at age five and was a student of Sergei Mihailoff in San Francisco during her high school years. She performed publicly in San Francisco, Palo Alto and surrounding cities from the age of nine and was a popular recitalist in the peninsula. Following her graduation from Sequoia Union High School, where she was the principal pianist and won numerous music awards, she majored in music at San Jose State College and then continued her piano studies at the College of Music of Cincinnati (now the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati) under M. Leon Conus, formerly the head professor of piano at the Imperial Conservatory of Moscow. At CMC, she was elected to the international music sorority Sigma Alpha Iota.
Following her return to Palo Alto, Gladys married Alonso Judson Pursley Winn on December 24, 1941 at the First Methodist Church in Palo Alto, where the couple had met and she was a pianist. In the early years of World War II, she accompanied her husband to Army Air Force bases in the U.S. where he trained as a pilot. He later captained 51 bomber missions in Europe. Following the War, Gladys gave private piano lessons and enjoyed playing tennis and skiing with her husband. She also accompanied him to frequent tennis tournaments in California and, later, nationwide. Gladys was a talented floral designer at Palo Alto Florist, a charity volunteer, an active supporter of the Greenmeadow Swim Team, and a member of several social and bridge groups. She continued playing classical piano for family and friends well into her nineties and was a huge fan of the popular singer Neil Diamond throughout his entire career; her car sported the license plate “Neil Nut”.
Gladys and her husband moved to the Greenmeadow neighborhood of Palo Alto in 1959 where they raised two daughters, Katherine and Arlene, who attended local elementary and secondary schools. The family loved to travel and by the time of her death, Gladys – who was still flying at age 99 – had visited more than 41 countries. She made frequent visits to Michigan, New Mexico, and the East Coast to spend time with her daughters and granddaughter Elizabeth, who was her last piano student. When she was 98, she was the guest of honor at Elizabeth’s wedding in Greenwich, Connecticut. Throughout her life, Gladys was also a beloved friend of her daughters’ and granddaughter’s friends and keenly followed new trends and ideas. Gladys read extensively, was thoroughly versed on national and international affairs, and was a fiercely competitive card player right up to the end. Often referred to by her friends as “one class act,” Gladys was always perfectly made up and elegantly dressed. Noted in the local medical community for her robust health and sunny disposition, she was the subject of a feature story in the Fall 2019 “Foundation for Health” publication of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, of which she was a patient since its inception. She positively sparkled as she was honored by 27 friends and family members in her garden on her 100th birthday last May. She will be deeply missed by all, and remembered for her warmth, creativity, love of classical music, sense of style and glamour, love of dogs, and devotion to her family.
Gladys was predeceased by her husband of 70 years, A. J. Pursley Winn, and is survived by her daughters, Arlene Leslie Winn (Dave) of Michigan and New Mexico, and Katherine Winn Rider (Greg) of Greenwich, Connecticut, and her granddaughter, Elizabeth Winn Rider (David) of Austin, Texas. Funeral arrangements were private.
