Dr Gladys T McGarey
30th November 1920 -September 28th 2024
Through her long and storied life, Dr. McGarey’s light touched and enlivened so many people in so many places. As a practicing physician, a prime mover in the field of holistic medicine, and the matriarch of a vibrant family, Gladys showed us—with her deeds as with her words—that the universe is made out of love.
Dr. Gladys’ earthly life ended on Saturday, September 28, just two months shy of her 104th birthday. She leaves in her wake a vast legacy of good works, all rooted in what she called the 5Ls: Love, Life, Labor, Laughter, and Listening.
As Holistic Primary Care’s publisher, Meg Sinclair noted last year, in her review of Dr. McGarey’s most recent book The Well-Lived Life, “This wise woman is not only a Godmother of Holistic Medicine, she’s a Fairy Godmother of life itself, spreading love, and always pointing us toward the fundamental truth that we really do need each other to grow and live healthy, fulfilling lives.”
“Once you’re able to receive love, health and happiness will follow. Then the only natural response is to start spreading it to everyone you meet.”
Gladys Louise Taylor’s early life is the stuff of story books. She was born on the banks of the River Ganges in Fatehgarh, a town in the province of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India.
Her parents, Drs. John and Elizabeth Taylor, were both osteopathic physicians who studied with A.T. Still, the founder of osteopathy, and who served as medical missionaries representing the Reformed Presbyterian Church. In India, the Taylors provided free, full-spectrum medical care in remote regions to anyone in need regardless of creed or caste. Their patients included many with Hansen’s disease (leprosy).
The Taylors served in India for 55 years. They witnessed India’s struggle for independence from the British, including Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent protest efforts, and also the bloody violence of the 1947 partition of the former British Raj into the modern nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. As a child, she lived in tents amid nature untamed, or in towns teeming with people whose languages and cultures were very different from her own.
Despite her innate intelligence, young Gladys struggled in school, especially with reading.
“The word dyslexia wasn’t yet coined back then, but I was the class dummy. School was very hard for me. I absolutely did not know the difference between the word “God” and “Dog”….they looked like the same word to me,” she said in an extensive interview with Holistic Primary Care back in the Spring of 2020.
Written by Erik Goldman