REMEMBERING TIM

Timothy Britt Ray

1939-2020

Tim decided to become a social worker, because he wanted to dedicate his life to helping others, and he will be remembered for doing just that. After one year working with Aid to Families with Dependent Children, he was convinced that this should be his life’s work. The next year he was enrolled in the master’s degree social work program at West Virginia University in Morgantown. His career was launched.

Tim was born in New Orleans on June 13, 1939 to Eliza Britt Ray and Dr. Archie Cole Ray, a Presbyterian minister. Eliza Ray was a Christian Educator, also with the Presbyterian Church.

Tim enjoyed and excelled at running. He ran on cross country racing teams during his high school years.

He studied Philosophy both at Davidson College (B.A., 1961) and at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge (M.A., 1963). He started a Ph.D. program in Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but dropped out after a year and a half to seek other opportunities.

Tim married Constance Helen Abbott on November 27, 1964 in the Chapel Hill Friends Meetinghouse. The couple had met during the summer of 1964 while working at Woodward State Hospital in Iowa on an American Friends Service Committee project.

After receiving his Masters of Social Work degree from WVU in 1968, Tim was recruited by the state of California where he became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. He worked first at Sonoma State Hospital and then Mendocino State Hospital where he directed drug abuse and alcoholism treatment programs.

Tim enrolled in the University of Santa Clara School of Law and received his Juris Doctor degree in 1976. While in law school, he was the Director of the East Oakland Drug Abuse Clinic, where he led a treatment team composed of physicians, nurses and social workers. He served as Field Instructor for the San Jose State University School of Social Work. He also taught a management class for paraprofessional counselors (Business 17, Merritt College). An article he wrote, “The Client Oriented Service Delivery System Within the Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program,” was published in Contemporary Drug Problems (Vol. IV, No. 4 Winter 1975), a law quarterly published by Federal Legal Publications, Inc.

Tim became Executive Director of the Toledo Legal Aid Society in 1977 and worked there until 1982. He developed the new Senior Legal Service Program for the elderly, securing grants, appointing staff, and presenting the program plan for the approval of the board of trustees and the Area Agency on Aging. He passed the Ohio bar examination and was registered as an attorney in 1981.

Tim moved to Florida in 1982 to become director of a drug abuse program in Miami. In 1985 he became Executive Director of the Alachua County Older Americans Council. He initiated the recruitment of lawyers to assist elderly people to file their income taxes.

He was instrumental in getting interested people together to form a food bank in Alachua County when it became known that the county had been identified as one of the most food insecure counties in the nation. He became the founding Board President of The Bread of the Mighty Food Bank in 1987, and served until 1990.

In the last years of his social work career, Tim worked for Hospice of Marion County in Florida. His biography appeared in Who’s Who in America, for the years 2000-2004, for demonstrating “outstanding achievement” and contributing “significantly to the betterment of contemporary society” (Randy Mysel, publisher). Tim retired in 2006.

Tim was passionate about writing. Besides the article published in Contemporary Drug Problems, he had several articles published in The Tar Heel, The Gainesville Sun and The Ocala Star-Banner.

Tim was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Gainesville and served one term as Clerk of Session. He liked going to serve communion to people who were unable to attend church regularly. He enjoyed his Bible Study Class, and especially liked taking his turn leading it.

Later Tim joined the Gainesville Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, where Connie was already a member. He took on the responsibility of serving as Clerk of the meeting’s Peace and Social Concerns Committee.

He liked nothing better than participating in demonstrations for worthy causes. He liked feeling as if he was physically involved in making the world a better place. He joined the great March on Washington for Jobs and Equality in August 1963 in spite of his parents’ objections. To get a good look at Dr. King and the great performances and speakers, he climbed up the scaffolding built for a television camera crew. He returned to Washington in 1968 to participate in the Poor People’s Campaign. Throughout their married life, Tim and Connie participated in numerous national and local demonstrations for Civil Rights, Peace, and more recently, Gun Control.

Tim enjoyed beaches. He liked to go looking for perfect seashells and walking in the surf. He was happy to say that he had skinny dipped in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf. Wherever life would lead him, Tim would find clothing optional beaches and nudist clubs. In Mendocino County he liked to find other young professionals who would come up from all over north of the Bay to camp out for the weekend and skinny dip in the Navarro and Russian Rivers.

His taste in music ran from serious (Mahler, Schoenberg) to jazz (Brubeck). He ready mostly non-fiction (philosophy, investigative reporting, news magazines and newspapers). He did enjoy The Castle by Kafka. Movies that Tim liked include: “The Trial,” “Babette,” “American President,” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” When “All in the Family” became household conversation (1971), he broke down and bought a television. Besides that program, he liked to watch the news, “60 Minutes,” Bill Moyers, and “West Wing.”

Considering giving blood to be a civic duty, Tim became a “5 Galloneer” at the Civitan Life South Blood Bank in Gainesville.

Tim and Connie had two children. Tim loved being a dad: playing soccer in the backyard, helping make pinewood derby cars, teaching the basics of taking care of a car, and going with his daughter to Girl Scout “Me and My Dad” camp.

Gregory Ray lives with his wife, Ginger Marshall, and son Mack in Amish country near State College in the middle of Pennsylvania. Rebecca Ray lives with her husband, David Rosnick, in Boston. Tim’s brother, Richard Ray, lives with his wife, Lila Ray, in North Carolina.

Jim Notestein, Alachua County Commissioner from 1984 to 1988, said of Tim, “He’s a good person doing good things; a public citizen.” JoAnn Lordahl from Gainesville’s Friends Meeting said, “He is so sweet. You can just feel the sweetness coming from inside of him.” 

Gregory Ray

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Becky’s Note about her Dad

Tonight at 7pm, [April 25,2020]  my father Timothy Ray passed away from lymphoma and Alzheimer’s disease. He was 80 years old.

He was a man of rare vision and heart.

He loved the whole world, all of it. He saw the beauty in every flower and tree, and in every human being he met, no matter how unlovable.

He also saw the cruelty in the world with clear eyes. He felt every injustice in his bones, no matter small or insurmountable, even when others might be tempted to shrug and say, “We’ve always done it this way” or “There’s nothing we can do about it.” He spent his life working tirelessly to bring more compassion and justice to his world.

He taught me to pray and meditate, question authority (and my own too-easy answers) and speak truth to power. He was a man of deep spirituality, always reading and praying but never content to accept a creed handed to him. He glowed when he taught me about his heroes, Schweitzer, Romero, Tutu, Gandhi, and many others. He taught me to appreciate Rilke and Rumi, though he never succeeded in teaching me to appreciate existential philosophy.

He taught me to stay vulnerable, embrace the mysteries of life, speak up for myself, but NOT be arrogant enough to believe I could speak up for others. He taught me it was better to work alongside people than for them.

One particular moment captured this aspect of him particularly well. When I was mid-dissertation, I proudly told him about my fieldwork (listening to indigenous leaders in the Amazon) and how I got to take their stories to national government authorities and international companies. I thought he’d approve. Instead, he challenged me gently. “And what gives you the right to speak on their behalf?” he asked softly, eyes glistening but firm. I stopped in my tracks and appreciated the challenge. I clarified: I’m not speaking on anyone else’s behalf. I’m finding answers to research questions that governments and companies also care about. The stories I’ve heard inform my answers. I’m speaking on my own behalf, with my own insights and limitations. In retrospect, I think he was satisfied. He was certainly proud of his kids, every moment of every day, and he let us know this, constantly.

Two things he wanted for me that I will never do: learn to love Debussy and have children. (“But you and David would make such smart babies!” he once bemoaned sweetly.) Two promises I haven’t kept well but intend to: take better care of my car and take a self-defense class. (His “love language” was Rumi and oil changes.) Dad always worried about his ladies’ safety, even if his nerves were set at ease a bit when he saw me settle down a big, strong, gentle guy with an intimidating beard. On that note, I’m setting off on a road trip to my mom. I checked the oil first. Thanks, Dad.