Gay Sisters

The Gay family hailed from Georgia. They moved to Chicago just after World War I. Jerry Gay, the father, ran two second-hand furniture stores and Fanny Parthenia Barnes, the mother, directed a choir at Elder Lucy Smith’s All Nations Pentecostal Church on West 30th Street. Fanny was a major influence on her children: soon after World War II, she organized her three daughters into a singing group and had them schooled in harmony until they were ready to perform...