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Obituary

'Just the kindest person I ever met'

After marrying her childhood sweetheart, Gloria Sparkman nurtured her family and her community.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published December 23, 2005

GLORIA JOHNSTON SPARKMAN, 1921-2005

GOLFVIEW - It was a long engagement that led to a long and happy marriage.

Lamar Sparkman proposed to Gloria Johnston when they were fourth-graders at Gorrie Elementary School.

Technically, they weren't engaged, because she didn't accept.

"She told me I was crazy," Lamar Sparkman said.

But throughout their years at Gorrie and later at Plant High School, the two were inseparable. Neither dated anyone else seriously.

"She lived on Davis Islands and I lived in Old Hyde Park," Sparkman said. "I had a pony that someone in my family had given me, and every day I would ride it to go visit her."

They got married about 13 years after that first proposal and remained married for 62 years. Mrs. Sparkman died of cancer Dec. 14 at age 84.

"We had a wonderful life together," Sparkman said. "A wonderful life. I think it was divine intervention that brought us together."

Mrs. Sparkman was born in Plant City, but her family moved to Tampa when she was 3 months old.

She and her childhood sweetheart met in third grade and they were separated only twice in their lives.

After they graduated from Plant, she attended Florida State College for Women and he went to the University of Florida.

Both returned to Tampa and married soon after college in 1943. Lamar Sparkman had joined the Army Air Corps, and just a few weeks after the wedding, he left for Italy to fight in World War II.

"I didn't see her for 23 months," he said. "I was one of the lucky ones. A lot of them never came back."

After his return, the young couple built a home on Sunset Drive. "We lived in that house, the house we built, for 51 years," Sparkman said.

Lamar Sparkman built a successful career as an artist, spending many years at the Tampa Tribune, where he specialized in sports illustrations. In 1975, he designed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' logo, Bucco Bruce.

Mrs. Sparkman was a stay-at-home mother to the couple's two daughters. She was never especially interested in art, but her husband credits her support for helping him establish himself as a painter after he left the Tribune.

"I got really lucky with my art," he said, "and she was always pushing me to do it."

Throughout her adult life, Mrs. Sparkman was a tireless volunteer and a member of many prominent civic groups. She belonged to the Founders Garden Circle, the Chiselers and Tampa Yacht Club. She was a board member of the Junior League of Tampa and the Family Service Association of Greater Tampa, and a Girl Scout leader.

"She cared so deeply for people," her husband said. "She did a lot of charity work. She was just the kindest person I ever met."

In 1996, the Sparkmans left their home in Golfview and moved into a Bayshore Boulevard high-rise.

In addition to her husband, Mrs. Sparkman is survived by her daughters, Lamar Jean Toole and Rosemary McAteer; a brother, Frederick Swain Johnston; a sister, Jean Johnston Ayala; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 09:27:09]