Ric Talley

Jennie Gayl Talbert, 71, of Durham, died Saturday, April 3, 2021. Born in Durham County, she was the daughter of the late Edgar Dorton Talbert, Sr. and Ernestine "Teeny" Morton Talbert, who survives. 
 
The world lost a sweet and gentle soul who will be deeply missed.  Gayl was compassionate, cheery, and full of life.  She never met a stranger and made everyone with whom she came into contact feel welcomed.
 
Gayl thought of food as love and was never happier than when gathered on the back porch of her home with friends and family, enjoying a delicious home-cooked meal with candles burning, music playing, and a soft summer breeze blowing.   She would offer a gentle reminder that “there won’t be many more days like this,” referring to the warm summer nights.  
 
While she was sweet, generous, and worked tirelessly to support her friends and family, she was also disarmingly funny.  She was quick to recite perfectly-appropriate aphorisms in her enchanting southern drawl when the situation provided for it. “That’s your lie, you can tell it any way you like.”
 
Gayl loved to travel and explore mountain and beach locations with her friends and family.  Frequent favorite destinations included North Myrtle Beach (SC), the Maryland shore, Asheville (NC), Cancun, Mexico, and Turks & Caicos.  It was no surprise she would return from each of these getaways with ideas for new recipes to prepare for her friends.  New Orleans’ Jazz & Heritage Festival provided Gayl with the perfect combination of music, food, fun, and Cajun spirit, and she dreamed of the next time she would make the trek to Louisiana.
 
Gayl Talbert embodied the idea that if you choose to be anything, choose to be kind.

Ms. Talbert graduated from Person High School and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Years later, shefollowed her passion and embarked on what would become a fulfilling nursing career by enrolling at Durham’s Watts School of Nursing.  She retired from UNC Health Care’s Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Unit in 2018.  She was a member of Long Memorial United Methodist Church.
 
In addition to her mother, she is survived by her partner of twenty-two years, Michelle Frey; five children: Charles Edward Perkins, Jr. (Roxboro), Lane Talbert Perkins and wife, Christie Conner Perkins (Roxboro), Claire Perkins and husband, Steve Ahrens (Lambertville, NJ), Mary Yates Perkins Galarde and husband, John Galarde (Charlotte), and John Matthew Frey (Durham); two brothers: Eddie Talbert and wife, Terri (Roxboro) and Daniel Morton Talbert, Sr. (Roxboro); three grandchildren: Skyler Perkins, Conner Perkins, and Andrew Ahrens; several nieces and nephews; many dear friends and her two beloved Golden Doodles, Ben and Tucker.

Ric, I had a sudden, unexpected surge of knowledge and figured out how to change my profile all by myself! It was, are you ready for this? It was under "Edit Profile"! But, thanks anyway!

December 11, 2014