Gayle Ruth (Cooper) Korte Obituary

Gayle Ruth (Cooper) Korte passed away on Saturday, December 20, 2025 in Chandler, Arizona at age 75. Gayle was born on October 21, 1950 to Christene (Holley) Cooper and Stewart Cooper in Abilene, Texas.

Gayle was the second of four children born to Stewart and Christene Cooper. To her beloved siblings, Gayle was a second mother. She loved to play school and teach them to read. Gayle also had several cousins whom she considered as close as sisters and brothers. She had many lifelong friendships, including the “Texas Twelve,” a group of classmates from her school days in Abilene.

Gayle loved music her entire life. From an early age she sang in the choir at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in Abilene. She went on to sing at every other church she attended throughout her life. Gayle loved animals and plants. She accumulated a lifetime of cherished pets. She could identify countless birds and plants of the southwest.

Gayle attended West Texas A&M and the University of Texas in Austin to obtain her teaching degree. She became a media specialist and then a reading specialist. She met her husband Ben while jogging in the desert at El Paso. They married in 1977. Gayle and Ben lived in El Paso and later in Lubbock, where their daughter Rachel was born in 1984. They moved to Chandler in 1984 after Ben got a job offer at Motorola Inc.

In Chandler, Gayle became a stay-at-home mom. She started an in-home daycare for children who in time became like siblings to Rachel, and whose parents became friends with Gayle.

Gayle returned to teaching in 1991 in the Tempe Elementary School District. She found great fulfillment as a teacher of English as a Second Language until those programs were eliminated from the schools. Ever a lover of reading and of children’s books, she then obtained her Master’s degree in library science and worked as a  teacher-librarian until her retirement in 2014.

Gayle had a rich faith that guided her life, giving her purpose and hope in difficult times. She lived out her faith by serving others and by always finding ways to include those around her. Together with her husband, Gayle also participated in numerous Habitat for Humanity building projects in the Phoenix valley as well as abroad.

Gayle and her family were members of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Tempe, where Gayle served generously as a member of the choir, as Sunday school teacher, as Vacation Bible School teacher, as youth group leader, chalice bearer, lay-reader, and even as secretary for a few summers when school was out. In later years she attended St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Chandler, to be with her family and sing soprano in the choir that her daughter Rachel directed.

Gayle’s grandchildren Clara and William brought her much joy, and she loved every minute she spent with them. She listened to them babble with eagerness when they were tiny babies, and she picked out words that she heard them say. She read them book after book, and played with them for hours.

She loved to be with all her extended family. She looked forward to celebrations and trips together. She prepared cards and gifts for the birthdays of each of her nieces and nephews, her siblings and her grandchildren, often sending specially picked books.

Gayle is survived by her husband, by her daughter Rachel Salemi and son-in-law Charlie, by grandchildren Clara and William Salemi, and by her siblings Mary Jane Coventry, James Daniel Cooper, and Thomas Stewart Cooper. She is preceded in death by her parents, Christene Cooper and Stewart Cooper.

Memorial services will be held at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Chandler on Saturday, January 3rd, 2026 at 10:00 AM. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church music fund or to Habitat for Humanity.