Francis Radford Ray could have been a character in one of the more than 50 romance novels she wrote.
A career Dallas school nurse, she became a best-selling author and pioneer for the black romance genre.
Ray, 68, died July 2 of natural causes at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Services will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Concord Church in Dallas, where she was a member. Viewing will be at the church from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday and from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Saturday.
Ray enjoyed meeting her readers and helping other writers, said her daughter, Michelle Ray of Dallas.
“She loved opening the world of writing to other people,” her daughter said. “She would help whenever she could — not only established writers, but the writers who were coming up. They could email her anytime to ask questions.”
Born in Richland, Ray received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Texas Woman’s University in 1967. She married William Henry Ray in 1967. He died in 2008.
She was a Dallas County public health nurse before joining the Dallas Independent School District in the early 1980s.
Nurse Ray, as Dallas students knew her, started writing in 1987 to fill a void she saw in the romance novels she enjoyed reading.
“It really disturbed me,” she recalled in 1993. “I was yearning to read a romance book with a black man who was loyal, compassionate, intelligent and handsome — I wanted to read a ‘Mr. Right’ for me.”
Ray endured 10 rejections before her first book, Forever Yours, was published in 1992. It was a good year for black women authors: Toni Morrison (Beloved), Alice Walker (The Color Purple) and Terry McMillan (Waiting to Exhale) all had books on the New York Times best-seller list at the same time. Ray consistently made the list during her writing career.
In 1994, Kensington Publishing Corp. added Ray to its stable of authors.
Ray’s dual career and modest personality put her in some interesting real-life scenes. Students would often ask her to autograph a book for their mother.
“I’m thinking … [the kids] can’t open this book,” she said in 2003. “They’re probably flipping to the good parts.”
Ray said she hated writing the sex scenes.
“It just makes me uncomfortable,” she said. “I think that’s something so personal.”
Reviewers noted Ray’s gift for realistic dialogue and her ability to build sexual suspense without resorting to explicit sex scenes.
Her sixth book, Incognito, became the first made-for-television movie on Black Entertainment Television.
Ray also was an avid gardener.
“She was always so loving and her heart was always so open,” her daughter said.
Ray established The Turning Point Legal Defense Fund to assist battered women with their legal expenses. The fund is managed by The Family Place, a Dallas women’s shelter. It is named for her 2001 novel The Turning Point, her first mainstream novel. In 2004, the book was retitled Trouble Don’t Last Always.
Despite her success as an author, Ray kept her day job with the Dallas district. She was the nurse at Brashear Elementary when she retired in at the end of the 2012-13 school year.
Her 53rd book, All That I Desire, is scheduled to be released in October.
In addition to her daughter, Ray is survived by her mother, Venora Radford of Dallas; and two sisters, Lois Radford Gabriel and Verda Radford Thomas, both of Dallas.
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