Gail Ann Plum

Gail Ann Plum died peacefully at home on Jan. 16, 2024. She led a wonderful life filled with love and adventure along with her husband of 68 years, Lowell Wendell Plum.

She loved to travel. She traveled all over the US, plus many places in Europe, Asia, and South America. She also loved to camp and sail. She and Wendell would sail for weeks at a time with their three young children on their 22-foot sloop. She loved music. She played the piano and performed in local theater productions. She was also in many different choirs, starting as a teenager, and lasting through her retirement years in Asheboro, North Carolina, where she sang in the choir at the First United Church in Asheboro.

She loved children and education. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1955 at Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana, she taught English at an elementary school in Corpus Christi, Texas. She continued to teach as a substitute teacher after moving to Sudbury, Massachusetts, and then to Asheboro, North Carolina. She enjoyed seeing and exploring the world through children's eyes. 

She loved her family, and she was a wonderful mother and a devoted wife. She enjoyed spending time and playing games with her children and then later with their children. After raising her children in Sudbury from 1957 to 1985, she and Wendell retired to Asheboro, where they built the house that she lived in for the remainder of her life. A special place in her life was Little Diamond Island, Portland, Maine. She spent every summer there since 1970. She especially enjoyed the wonderful community there, in addition to the island lifestyle.

Gail Ann Plum was known as Ann by her friends. She was born in North Manchester, Indiana on December 24, 1932, to Kathern Lois Shope and Galen William Shope. She is survived by husband Lowell Wendell Plum, whom she married on June 26, 1955 in Flora, Indiana; her three children Wendy Ann Labrecque, Michael Andrew Plum, and John David Plum; five grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

The family will receive friends on Thursday, January 25, 2024 from 6:00-8:00 pm at Pugh Funeral Home, 437 Sunset Avenue in Asheboro.