Mrs. Ernestine Ray was a devoted wife, loving mother, and caring daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She was born on January 2, 1936, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to Dock Griffin and Mattie Duncan. She was the second of nine children. After moving to East Palo Alto, California, in 1958 with her mother, siblings, and three children of her own, she studied in the field of nursing. She was a Registered Practical Nurse for nearly twenty years. During this time in 1974, she met and married the love of her life, Mr. Dave Ray. Together, the happy couple relocated to Milpitas, California, where she opened a daycare service. Ernestine and Dave shared forty-four years of marital happiness before her passing.
Ernestine leaves behind to mourn her passing, her husband, Dave Ray; her daughters, Precilla Fowler and Carolyn Washington; her sons, Kenneth Washington and Lendell Ray; her sister, Bessie Smith-Wash; her brothers, Charles Griffin and Dock Griffin. She leaves twenty-one grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild, four step-children, one son-in-law, and one daughter-in-law, as well as a host of nieces, nephews, cousins, and extended family and friends. She is proceeded in death by her mother and father, Mattie and Dock; her sisters, Josephine Williams and Christine McMullen; her brothers, Willie Griffin, Lorindia Smith, and Robert Smith; her daughters, Johnnie Marie Wimberly and Rosie King; her step-daughter, Yvonne Brewer; and her grandchildren, Moses Phillips and Anthony Ward.
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