Uncrowned Community Builders

Lula Lucritia Adams was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1918. Her parents, Maze Gregg Adams and Edna Earl Miller Adams moved to Buffalo when their daughter was just eight months old. Lula met and married Edward Cato Gayles II in 1935. They were the proud parents of seventeen children.

She is remembered as an unselfish woman who put God, her husband and her children first. Her daughter and namesake, Lula Lucritia Gayles Herring, recalled that her mother waited for seven years to buy a dress in order to help her husband pay for the mortgage on their home at 325 South Division Street. Mrs. Gayles made homemade ice cream and crocheted doilies, handbags, hats, centerpieces, and dresses to help her husband, a 45-year employee of Bethlehem Steel Plant, provide for the family. As a result of her parents' efforts, Mrs. Herring said that the family always owned their own home and never knew the unfortunate problems large families sometimes face, such as being unable to pay household bills or needing charitable donations.

Mrs. Gayles was a strict disciplinarian who taught her children not to fight. Her children were not only obedient to her, but were respectful to all adults.

Throughout her life, Mrs. Gayles received numerous honors and recognition awards. The Governor, the Mayor, the Buffalo Common Council, Social and Church organizations honored Mrs. Gayles and her family (The Gayles Family Singers).

Her son, Gregg coined the phrase, "Love, Mamo," to express how her family feels about the outstanding contributions that Mrs. Gayles made to her family, the community of Buffalo, State of New York, the United States, and the world.

As a final expression of the legacy of this outstanding woman, the epithet on Mrs. Gayles' tombstone reads, "To live in the hearts of her seventeen children is not to die."