Gail Cooper Tolleson's Obituary
Mt Sequoyah, Fayetteville, Arkansas – Gail Cooper Tolleson, age 84, died on November 29, 2024, at the Willard Walker Hospice Home. She died embraced in the love of her daughters and their families.
Four years earlier, Gail had lost the love of her life, John Harrison Tolleson, to Parkinson’s Disease. Married 60 years, Gail had missed John and awaited a time when they would find each other again. Theirs was a great love story. They were best friends, spent their lives together, raised a family, and wanted to be nowhere more than at each other’s side. For Gail, her relationship with John was the greatest gift of her life.
Gail was born in Springfield, MO, and grew up on Mt. Sequoyah in Fayetteville, a town she loved. She attended Washington Elementary, Fayetteville High School, and two years at the University of Arkansas, where she met John.
As a young woman coming of age in the 1950’s South, Gail learned that being a woman meant, primarily, being well mannered, pretty, and married, but went on to teach her four daughters otherwise, encouraging them to learn, work, and to strive for independence. Her lessons to her growing daughters (“go to school as long as you can,” “don’t get married too young,” “wait to have children”) were often in contrast to her own life course. It was not always easy, often painful, raising four girls in a dramatically changing world, but the challenges strengthened and broadened her. She emerged a woman who was profoundly reflective, accepting of difference, contemplative (participating in many silent retreats), and willing to evolve in order to meet the needs of those she loved. She was highly intelligent. John, who knew her best, called her “wise,” and as adults her children sought her counsel. She learned as time went by to listen to and be true to herself. She was fiercely independent of mind and spirit, and comfortable in solitude.
Across many years of living in other cities while raising her children (Chicago, Phoenix, Cincinnati), Gail always longed to return to the Ozarks. Fayetteville was her spiritual home, and she was connected deeply to her ancestral roots in Green Forest and Boxley Valley, teaching her big-city children about the beauty and simplicity of Ozark life and the wisdom of her elders who had taught her so much. She cherished her Aunt Fayrene (author of “The Home Place: Meditations on an Ozark Life”), passing along to her daughters how “No one cries when the armadillo dies!”
After raising their family, Gail and John returned to Fayetteville, where they cheered their Lady Razorbacks, became members of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, and made a home on Mt. Sequoyah with their dogs, Cooper, Maggie, and Harley. During these years, Gail found a “hobby,” one that changed her life. She began volunteering at an animal shelter, and her world was forever transformed. For the last 25 years of her life, Gail was a tireless advocate for homeless dogs. She became part of a growing and complex network of rescue operations (which one of her daughters referred to as an “underground railroad”). She was a hero, committing her days to saving hundreds—if not thousands—of dogs. In the last days of her life, she was still at work finding them safe harbor. Her dedication to this work, and her great loving compassion for the dogs of the earth, is her greatest legacy.
Gail is survived by her four daughters, Jennifer (Brenda), Leslie (Randy), Julie (Pam), Susannah (Doug), and six grandchildren, Harrison, Tag, Spencer, Clare, David, and Rory, and by her dearest, oldest friend, Sarah Myers.
Gail is predeceased by her husband, John, her adored parents, Dale and Louise Cooper of Fayetteville, her older brother, Bob Cooper (Paulette, still living), and her older sister, Sue Towns (Adolph), and by John’s parents, H.G. and Jo Tolleson, of Greenwood.
Gail is also survived by her dog, Hope, who now lives in Denver with Gail’s daughter, as well as countless dogs across the country who Gail helped to save through her ongoing rescue work.
In her lifetime, Gail was enduringly loved and admired. She is now where she has most longed to be since October 6, 2020… with John… somewhere beyond the Rainbow Bridge.
There will be a public funeral service for Gail and John Tolleson on January 11, 2025, 1:00 pm, at St Paul’s Episcopal Church, 224 N. East Ave, in Fayetteville, followed by a 2:00 reception in the Parish Hall.
In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to:
Hope for Paws, https://www.zeffy.com/donation-form/donate-in-memory-of-gail-tolleson
NWA Humane Society for Animals, https://nwahumanesocietyforanimals.org, 407 E Nursery Rd, Rogers, AR, 72758
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church of Fayetteville, https://www.stpaulsfay.org/give, 224 N. East Ave., Fayetteville, AR, 72701
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