Gladys Hortense DeLoatch Holland of Nanuet, N.Y. died on August 18, 2021. She was 88.

She owned a vacation home on Norris avenue in Oak Bluffs for more than 40 years. Her annual trips to the Vineyard were among her greatest joys.

She was born June 8, 1933, the third of the eleven children of the late Paul and Josephine DeLoatch, residents of Piermont, N.Y.

She was educated in the Piermont public school system and attended Tappan Zee High School, graduating with highest honors in 1951.

Her outstanding academic performance earned her a full four-year scholarship to Hunter College’s Bronx campus. She graduated in 1955 with a bachelor of arts degree in elementary education. She later earned a masters degree in education from SUNY Purchase.

In the early 1970s, Gladys was a doctoral fellow in the Teachers College, Columbia University Graduate Program in Gifted and Talented Education. The untimely death of her graduate advisor while she was working on her dissertation impeded her earning a doctorate in education.

She specialized in teaching math and science to children in grades three, four and five. Her first employer was the Department of Education in New York city, for which she taught third grade at a public school on Staten Island. In 1956, she took a teaching position in the Piermont public school system and she remained until her retirement. This appointment made her the first African American to teach in Rockland county. Over the years Gladys received numerous letters and cards from former students, thanking her for the positive influence she had on their lives.

She was a woman of many talents. Her greatest love was making African-American cloth dolls that she sold at doll shows and flea markets in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Rockland county and Martha’s Vineyard. In 2008, two of her dolls were named first and second place winners in the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair.

Gladys is survived by two brothers, Dr. Eugene DeLoatch and Anthony DeLoatch; three sisters, Priscilla Gay, Antionette Bennett and Vivian Senghore; two brothers in law; and many nieces and nephews as well as great-nieces and nephews.