Mountain Laurel & Coal

  This photo makes me happy and sad. It was taken at Christmas in 1964 around the kitchen table of my grandparents in Clarksville. Pictured from the left is my grandmother Blanche Phillians, my father Forrest Wayne Ross, my mother Roberta Ross, my grandmother Ruth Ross, my grandfather Forest Vance Ross, my aunt Janet Ross and my grandfather George Phillians. The only one who is still alive is Aunt Janet.   I was probably napping in another room, because I was one month old and had just traveled with my parents on  a Greyhound bus from St. Louis, Mo. My dad said the mode of transportation had been given the seal of approval by my pediatrician. My parents were young and apparently up for the challenge. The photo was taken at the home of Vance and Ruth Ross by their neighbor and good friend Stanley Fowler. There are more photos from this day and I will post them when I find them. 

  Blanche Louise Shipley Phillians was born 110 years ago today in West Brownsville, Pa.  She was one of three daughters born to Howard Francis and Annabelle Ferguson Shipley. She married George Harry Phillians on June 11, 1938, in Hagerstown, Md. and on March 17, 1945, she gave birth to my mother, Roberta Lee, their only child. She died on December 11, 1997, the day before her 86th birthday.  Rumor has it she was the life of the party when she was younger and living in the booming town of Brownsville, Pa. She worked as a store clerk, rolled her own cigarettes, and baked a pretty good loaf of bread. She was a mix of superstition and anxiety and although obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) wasn’t a term back then, I’m sure she had it. In her adult years she worried and worried and then, for good measure, she worried some more. Blanche Louise Shipley &  her friend Ruth Ann She absolutely adored my grandfather and spent her whole life making sure he was happy and well fed. When she ma

H ow do you even begin to write about the loss of your father? I've put if off for a while, but it's time to recognize the fact that he's gone. Forrest Wayne Ross died on Thursday, September 16, 2021, in his home in Raleigh, NC. He had just celebrated his 79th birthday. Dad had been sick for about three years, but we hoped he would beat the cancer that was making him weak and stealing his youthful good looks and fun-loving personality. Just like everyone else who has terminal cancer there's a point where things start to change: a treatment takes a toll, appetite fades, a bout of dehydration, a urinary tract infection. Things get better and then it all starts again. Hospital, home, hospital, home. For us it was the beginning of the end, but we didn't realize it. A fall at the beginning of September set the ball rolling one last time: concerned looks from doctors, a mention of the word hospice, and an ambulance ride home. My dad wouldn't eat, he wouldn't talk,