Word has come this morning of the death of Anna May Slay, the mother of St. Louis mayor Francis G. Slay.
The mayor's press secretary Kara Bowlin released the information to the media and said that Slay's death "follows a long illness and was not unexpected."
Bowlin also said that the mayor and other family members were with Slay when she died, and that she was "a sweet, quiet woman with a core of steel" and "a staff favorite."
Arrangements for Slay are pending and we will update this post with more information as we know it.
Slay's death follows that of her husband, Francis R. Slay, who died in March 2011.
On May 8, 2005 the mayor proclaimed the day "Anna May Sobocinski Slay Day" and described his mother thusly:
Anna May Slay is a St. Louisan to her bones: fair-minded; home-bodied; more cautious than reckless; a better listener than a speaker; and deeply in love with her family, the people, homes, and parks of her own City neighborhood. Like many St. Louis women of her generation and upbringing, Anna May took a job after completing high school. A co-worker at Nabisco saw something special in Anna May, and arranged a date for Anna May with her nephew. The young man cancelled a singing audition to take Anna May out that evening, but he still must have struck the right chord with her. They were married on October 6, 1951. Life wasn’t always easy for the married couple, but it was never dull. Anna May and her husband raised eleven children. All of them, spouse and kids, understood that it was Anna May’s stability and commonsense that held the big family together all those years and still does.
