Gloria Parker

UFT Admin July 2, 2024

Retired Teacher

Gloria Parker, a foreign language teacher in New York City public schools for 29 years, died on July 2, 2024, at age 94. The cause was cardiovascular disease.

Gloria, a French and Spanish teacher who lived in Manhattan and was originally from Baltimore, retired from the Bronx High School of Science in 1990. In retirement, she volunteered at Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, one of the New York Public Library’s renowned research libraries, and tutored students, friends and family said.

Charles Moore, one of Gloria’s nephews, said she enjoyed spending time with her friends, especially those with whom she had taught, including Rene Kettrell and Helen Whitaker, now longtime UFT retirees.

Whitaker said she met Gloria in 1962, when they were co-workers at IS 52 in the Bronx. Gloria, who spoke multiple languages, left the school to teach at Bronx Science, but they kept up their friendship. “She was helpful, considerate and a lovely person,” Whitaker said.

In retirement, they got together for milestone birthdays and bonded in a Si Beagle quilting class they took.

“I’m going to miss Gloria, and I know the family’s going to miss her,” Whitaker said.

Gloria and Whitaker also stayed friends with Kettrell, who moved to Virginia. Kettrell said Gloria was a gracious person who liked to help others. “Gloria, she was a very, very good friend and a person that you could talk to and trust and do things with,” Kettrell said.

Moore said he learned so much about stocks, wealth, nutrition and other topics from his aunt Gloria. She was always reading a book, and she also loved to cook and eat healthy food, share recipes with family, and exercise, especially swimming, he said.