Texan Kaye flies in for reunion - 55 years on

After 55 years, a netball team from Bury St Edmunds have finally been reunited.

Kaye Gonzalez (née Sapey) was born and raised in Bury where she lived in College Street until she was 18 and moved to the USA.

She moved to the States with her previous husband and her children’s father who worked in the airforce in 1967. They divorced after 16 years, but Kaye, 70, decided to stay settled in America, for her two children, Francine and Kenneth.

She currently lives in Giddings, Texas, with her present husband Jose and 15 cats. She has previously lived in Houston, Texas and Caldwell, Texas.

Kaye’s daughter Francine, 50, decided to arrange a reunion as a surprise for Kaye, for the women that her mother used to play with in a netball team at Silver Jubilee School now King Edward VI School.

She posted on the We Love Bury St Edmunds Facebook page the picture of the netball team (bottom right) when the women were just 15 years
old.

She arranged for the women to all meet for lunch at Fornham Golf Club and share memories and their new lives.

“We met at midday and were still there well after 5pm,” Kaye said.

“It was terrific, we were like, who are you, then I looked at their faces and realised who each were.

“We knew each other from school and the netball team. We were friends,” she added.

She met with nine of her former friends who she reunited with.

On meeting her old friends, Kaye said: ““It was a meeting of a lifetime. It was gorgeous, so lovely.

“The waitress was magnificent, really good.”

Kaye is staying with her brother and sister-in-law who live in Horringer Road and is planning on visiting family in London after staying in Bury.

Kaye said: “It was great seeing the bunch of girls, they really didn’t look any different, just grey hair and glasses. Words can’t explain how neat it was to see them all.”

Kaye comes back to Bury to visit family every two years or so.

She said: “At times it is hard to go back and be in America.

“It’s lovely when I come back to Bury and see the change. But when I came back and saw McDonald’s in the square, I thought ‘oh
no’.”