Funeral services for 96-year-old Imelda Ann Gorman of Hopkinsville will be Wednesday, March 19, at 10:00 at Sts Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Hopkinsville.
Inurnment will follow at a later date in the family cemetery plot in Detroit.
Visitation will be held Tuesday from 3:00 – 7:00 pm at Hughart, Beard and Giles Funeral Home and on Wednesday, March 19, from 9:00 – 10:00 am at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church. A Rosary will begin at 9:45 am.
Imelda Ann Gorman, who was honored as Hopkinsville, KY “Citizen of the Year,” in 2003, passed away peacefully on March 15, 2025 at Hospice House of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Mrs. Gorman, 96, was a long-time fixture in Hopkinsville’s theater and arts scene, and well known to hundreds of University Heights Academy graduates who experienced her loving yet stern version of “loco parentis”. Hopkinsville-Christian County Historian William T. Turner once noted that, “If Hopkinsville had a queen, it would be Imelda Gorman.”
The family requests that contributions in Mrs. Gorman’s name be made to the Pennyroyal Arts Council at https://www.pennyroyalarts.org/.
Mrs. Gorman was born on May 23, 1928, in Detroit, MI to the late Henry and Susan Orth. She was also predeceased by a brother, Henry Orth, a son, James, a granddaughter, Brittney Gorman Parrish, and a great grandson, Lucas Straw. She is survived by her older sister, Mary Lou Hayes, Muskegon, MI, and her children: Robert (Patricia), Three Mile Bay, NY; Susan (Paul) Tyson, Fairfax, VA; Thomas (Deborah), Thornton, CO; Anne Gorman, Annandale, VA; David (Julie), Knoxville, TN; Douglas (Michelle), Bowling Green, KY; Steven (Rose Mary), Nashville, TN; and daughter-in-law, Beverly Gorman, Towson, MD. She is also survived by 16 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
Mrs. Gorman moved to Hopkinsville in 1975 from Severna Park, MD, when her former husband, the late Donald Gorman, was named president of the Ebonite plant in Hopkinsville. Mrs. Gorman soon became a member of the Pennyrile Players, where she eventually served as vice president. A natural talent in singing and acting, she appeared in several plays, including playing the role of Golde in “Fiddler on the Roof” and Mother Superior in “The Sound of Music.”
Imelda Gorman faced numerous challenges in her life, including her father’s death in 1937, at the height of The Great Depression. During World War II, her older brother fought in the jungles of the islands in the Pacific Ocean and returned home broken in ways that were never repaired. After marriage in 1949, there were frequent family moves as she tended to the psyches of eight children as they found themselves in new towns, attending new schools and starting over making new friends. And there was her public and painful divorce in 1982.
But then the curtain opened for Act II. And that’s when Imelda Gorman stole the show.
Mrs. Gorman expanded her role in Hopkinsville at University Heights Academy, where she spent 21 years as the director of admissions and development before retiring in 2003. She continued to work part time at UHA for another 10 years, until she was 85.
According to Jennifer Pitzer Brown, editor of the Hoptown Chronicle, “In the 1980s, Imelda and my father (Frank Pitzer) teamed up during a phone-a-thon to raise money for UHA. She fed him names, phone numbers and details about families, and he made the calls. She kept him on task and took notes while he made their pitch for donations. A great little team, those two.”
Mrs. Gorman also was involved in fundraising for the school through “Blazer Bingo” for decades, including on her 90th birthday. https://fb.watch/wKAcvYEebr <https://fb.watch/wKAcvYEebr/>
For decades Mrs. Gorman annually read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to UHA elementary students. https://fb.watch/wKAhH7weVI <https://fb.watch/wKAhH7weVI/>
She was also a long-time fundraising supporter of the Alhambra Theatre and was the inspiration for a fundraising booklet and stuffed animal known as “Imelda Mouse.” https://fb.watch/wJbIoQeNiM <https://fb.watch/wJbIoQeNiM/>
The Gorman family began hosting foreign exchange students in 1966 while living in Muskegon, MI, https://bit.ly/IMELDAGORMAN
Mrs. Gorman continued hosting exchange students for years in Hopkinsville. More than 10 students from Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, Serbia, France, and England became her bonus “children,” and she treated all of them as her own.
Many of these students have stayed in touch, such as Maya Ilic of Serbia, who wrote in 2015:
Dearest Mrs. G, you may not have a halo or the wings, but you are an Angel that changed my life when you took me in as an exchange student at UHA (and under what circumstances) and made me a better person. You loved me and took care of me like I was your own child … family is everything to Mrs. Gorman, when she saved me from another host family + took me under her wings I got to know her as a proud mamma of 8 and learned what it took to raise 8 children and love them unlimited. I was 18 at the time and she role modeled me how to be a strong independent woman that can do all. … and today I am celebrating my American Mom. HAPPY BIRTHDAY because you are the gift in my life I give you my gift of love.
Mrs. Gorman loved watching Tom Selleck’s “Blue Bloods,” and a myriad number of 1960s sitcoms. She DVR’d all of them so that she could quickly scroll through the commercials.
She was known countywide for knitting “Grandma Blankies” and stopped counting after giving away more than 300, mostly to the babies of relatives and friends. In a less public way, she also knitted blankets for young mothers in Christian County whom she had heard lacked family support. Mrs. Gorman would personally deliver a blanket to these mothers and then look around the house to see if she could “help out.” Mrs. Gorman often would collect all the dirty laundry, burp towels and bed sheets so she could take care of laundry and give the new mother a rest.
Mrs. Gorman attended Mass most days at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, until two years ago when her health prevented her from driving to church. That also meant she had to stop driving many of her younger friends to their medical appointments.
Of Imelda Gorman’s many traits, her children would certainly include stability, an ability to see all sides of an issue, and perseverance. Family moves in 1955, 1959, 1966, 1968 and 1975 through the states of Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland and Kentucky seasoned Mrs. Gorman into becoming adept at “growing where you are planted.”
Her children tried to follow her footsteps. Daughter Susan eventually found herself working on Capitol Hill and living in Saudi Arabia, England and Kuwait.
Daughter Anne became equally adept at creating and managing costumes for Hollywood movies, Broadway shows and television.
Before he became successful in the pharmaceutical industry, son Jim was the first white scholarship basketball player among the eight historically black colleges of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Son Tom was inducted into the National Society of Cable Television Engineers Hall of Fame. Son Steve appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Son Dave has been honored as one of the top middle school science teachers in Knoxville, TN. Son Doug helped oversee the downtown revitalization of Bowling Green, KY and is now Judge Executive for Warren County, KY. Son Bob was a South Carolina Journalist of the Year and was elected board chair for New York state’s Associated Press in 2001 and United Way in 2021.
Her children agree that they are who they are because of Imelda Gorman. They grew up in an organized home: a clean house, meals always served at the same time, laundry washed, folded and put away daily, and the house always straightened up before nightfall. Bedtimes were mandatory, although a later bedtime was granted on birthdays. Mom loved to laugh, had a wonderful sense of humor, and was able to see the positive in life when she was feeling anything but positive.
Mrs. Gorman’s love of singing and music was well known among family and friends. She spent years mortifying her kids as she harmonized with Muzak anywhere it played, usually at the grocery store. She called the kids home from playing outside by whistling a sharp, two-note sound that, if performed today by Dave Gorman, can still make her over-60-years-of-age brood stop what they are doing and wonder if they need to get home for dinner; a whistle we all can still hear to this day.
Mrs. Gorman thrived in Hopkinsville. She moved here 50 years ago, hoping it was going to be for the good of all family members. It turned out to be where she found herself most at home.
