Gladys Hampton

Gladys Hampton of Portage, 94, went peacefully to heaven on January 15th, 2025 at Rose Arbor Hospice in Kalamazoo. She was born to Frank and Magdalena Diaz, and was raised with her sisters Clara and Genie, in New York City. When she was 3 years old, she fell from the 2nd floor fire escape of their apartment, without any injuries. Growing up she, her sisters and friends, enjoyed going to movies, dances, Coney Island, Rockaway beach, and everything New York culture offered in its heyday, especially New York pizza when pizza wasn’t known around the US. She walked, took the subway and city buses to travel around New York and to school. When she was 14, she was in the crowd of thousands of New Yorkers who greeted the returning WWII soldiers in Times Square. After her high school graduation, she worked in an office in Manhattan until she married Eugene Hampton in 1950. Gene had recently returned from his stint in the Air Force serving in Okinawa after WWII with the US peacekeeping efforts. She met Gene at her cousin Denora’s home in Ohio- Gene was the younger brother of Denora’s husband. They lived in OH at first, then back to New York. Gene’s job with Emerson Radio as a contract electrician with the Air Force, had them moving several times to the western states of Idaho, Kansas, Texas and Colorado. They and their two children moved to Indiana when he started a new job with General Motors Fisher Body. They lived there for several years until their family, now with four children, was transferred to the new Fisher Body plant in Kalamazoo in 1966, and they made their home in Portage.

Gladys was a devoted mother, wife and homemaker. Even her employment outside the home consisted of caring for children as she worked as a lunch room supervisor and at a child care center near her home. She enjoyed reading, crocheting, coffee with the neighbors, and classic movies and comedies and the family trips to New York, Ohio, Kentucky, northern Michigan and Puerto Rico. After Gene’s retirement, they enjoyed many more road trips and camping in their RV, square dancing and camping with The Rollways, the Mall Walkers walking group, and eating out with friends. She sewed her own square dance dresses and skirts. She loved visits from her grandchildren and babysitting them. In 2000, Gladys and Gene celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

She cared for Gene during his recovery from heart surgery and illnesses, including dementia, in the later years of his life. When he passed in 2003, though she was heartbroken without her lifelong partner yet she kept her trust in God. She joined a bereavement group and continued mall walking, socializing with her friends, bible study, dancing and listening to music at the Scotts Community Center, and many visits from her children and grandchildren. She welcomed the birth of her first great grandchild. When her son died in 2016, she was heartbroken again. The births of her subsequent great grandchildren helped ease her sorrow and their visits filled her heart with joy.

She was cared for, in her home of over 55 years, by her oldest daughter, after hip surgery and kidney disease limited her mobility. She moved to Brookdale Assisted living for few years where she made new friends and was remembered for her friendliness, sweetness, happy attitude, and undemanding demeanor. When her kidney disease became end stage, she was sent to Rose Arbor Hospice. 

During some of the most difficult times in her life, she always stayed prayerful and trusted in God to give her strength. She always said He was good to her.

She is survived by her daughters, Suzette Hampton of Portage; Laura (Steve) Hubbard, of Plainwell; Debbie (Fred) Petersen of New Carlisle, IN ; grandchildren, Amy Rodriguez (Franz) of Panama City, Panama; Rick (Magda) Petersen of Bolingbrook, IL; Nathan (Maria) Hampton of Kalamazoo, MI; Emily (Justin Gilley) Hampton; great grandchildren Zack, Evelyn, and Theo Gilley; Joseph, Emma and Anna Rodriguez; her sisters, Clara Gomez and Genie Quinones of Puerto Rico; and many nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her husband Eugene, her son, Robert, her cousin Denora who introduced her to Eugene, her parents, many aunts, uncles and cousins, all her brothers-in-laws and sisters-in-laws, several nieces and nephews and many of the friends she met on her life’s journey. 

There will be a private visitation and funeral mass for Gladys at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Portage on Thursday, January 23rd. She will be buried with Eugene at Ft. Custer National Cemetery in Augusta, MI, following the funeral.

Memorial contributions may be given to the American Kidney Fund Donate Here.