[5] But when the marriage failed and she separated from her husband in 1924, she needed to support her children; jobs in London did not pay very well, so she decided to move her family to Toronto, where she believed she could find more lucrative opportunities for employment.
[6] Some sources have stated, erroneously, that she was Canada's first female broadcaster;[7] but researcher Peggy Stewart, in her 2012 book Radio Ladies: Canada's Women on the Air 1922-1975, tells the stories of women who were on the air as early as 1922, including Mary Conquest of CFAC in Calgary and Elizabeth MacAdam of CKMC in Cobalt.
[8] Her radio career had begun when she joined station CJGC in London, Ontario; she hosted a program where she read poetry.
[5] By 1928, she had also founded an acting troupe, the Jane Gray Players, which performed both short and long form radio drama.
[9] In addition to becoming popular with women radio listeners, Gray also began writing a column for housewives in the Toronto Globe & Mail.
In fact, her newspaper promoted her problem-solving abilities in regular advertisements: readers and radio listeners were encouraged to write to her for guidance, because she "has shown the way to happiness... to thousands of men and women.
[4] Ads placed in newspapers in every city in which she appeared referred to her as "The Wise Little Lady of the Air," speaking of her "common sense advice and sound philosophy.
"[12] In the early 1940s, she took a brief hiatus from broadcasting to care for her son Buddy, who was living in Calgary and had become gravely ill; he died of cancer at age 20, in 1942.
[16] Well into the 1960s, when styles of broadcasting had become smoother and more sophisticated, Gray was considered timeless by her fans: critics might call her corny and old-fashioned, but in a typical week, she would receive as many as 800 letters.
[18] Gray retired from full-time broadcasting in 1979, but continued to work as an occasional freelancer, filling in whenever CHCH needed her, until her death in 1984 at age 87.