Gloria Catherine Merriman Edwards, age 98, of Shreveport, Louisiana and Austin, Texas escaped this mortal realm on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, leaving behind an enormous number of Shreveport friends, and acquaintances she met while under care in Austin.
Gloria is survived by her eldest child Ginger (Virginia Elizabeth) Jones and husband Kevin Ells, second daughter Pepper (Patricia Lee) and Hugh Daniel, and her son Thomas C Merriman. She is also survived by grandchildren Catherine Jones Lytle (Ed), Zach Jones, and Melissa Merriman Adair Lee (Justin) and great grandchildren Aiden Jones, Isabella Kennon (Brock), Sophia Lytle, Rylan Jones, Phoebe Lytle, Brady Adair, and Beckett Lee.
Gloria is preceded in death by her parents Dominic and Elizabeth (Natali) Mence, her former husbands Gene (Marvin E.) Merriman and Kenneth Edwards, and one grandson, Douglas Marvin Huddleston.
Born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, she graduated from South Park High School in Beaumont, Texas, where she won a poetry writing contest and met her future husband. She became adept at writing, in 25 words or less, jingles that won her a good deal of money, a new stove, a new refrigerator, and a toy car for her son. When Gene moved his family to Shreveport, Gloria learned to carpool and play bridge. She soon became one of the best room mothers at Judson Elementary, sewed costumes for school plays, talked everyday with her friend Ruth, whom she called Rudy, cooked daily breakfast and dinners, and attended Mr. Lynn’s Modeling School, where she learned how to pose for cameras. She often called columnists for “The Shreveport Women’s Times” section of the newspaper The Shreveport Times to tell them what her family was up to: having babies, graduating college, wearing heirloom christening dresses, all of which were printed. After her first husband died, Gloria volunteered for the Luthern Braille Workers, supported her oldest daughter’s grad school education, her son’s business ventures, and her second daughter’s investments. She was introduced to Ken Edwards, who introduced her to RV travel and his large and close family, and flew with her on one of the last flights of the Concorde to London before he died.
Gloria was known for her pleasant sense of humor. She loved telling jokes, passing around her Uncle Joe Natali’s homemade wine, and reminding her children that she could play the piano and they could not. Neighborhood teenagers used to visit Gloria, share their secrets, and leave smiling, believing she was the one adult they could trust. She was a lifelong Catholic, attending Sacred Heart Church and then St. Mary of the Pines in Shreveport.
She enjoyed people, especially babies, old black and white movies, the trip to her father’s village in Calabria, Italy, and when she was no longer a licensed driver, eating out with her driver Pam. She adored big and formal family dinners, Wedgewood crystal, expensive jewelry, St. John’s suits, Neiman Marcus catalogues, and her grandchildren, whom she called Weesie, Zachy, Bo, and Missy. She was proud of her step grandchildren too, who knew her as a special grandmom. She treated the Cislaghi, Kamps, and Ward families with love, and thoroughly enjoyed hosting high school graduation, birthday and Christmas parties.
Gloria also loved putting hot sauce on most of the foods she ate.
After Pepper moved Gloria to Austin in 2017 and sold the house Gloria had lived in for over 50 years (with the same phone number for all of those years), she adjusted to a new church and a new way of life with caregivers before being sent to a Memory Care unit where she lived for 3 years in a world that seemed to confuse and sometimes irritate her. Still, she loved to smile for any camera available, to say, “I love you” and to hold hands.
There was no funeral. She is buried in Forest Lawn West in Shreveport.