Virginia, U.S., Marriage Records, 1936-2014
Arthur Walton
Arthur Walton, 65, of Arvonia, died Saturday, Jan. 11, 2003, at the University of Virginia Medical Center.
He will lie in state from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at the funeral home.
A chapel service will be held at 12 p.m. Wednesday at Thomasson's Funeral Service, Fork Union. Funeral services will be held on Saturday in Georgia, with interment in the Bunkley cemetery in Boxspring, Ga.
Thomasson's Funeral Services, Inc. Fork Union Chapel, and J.W. Jones Funeral Home, Inc., Columbus, Ga., are in charge of arrangements.
Mary L. Washington
Mary Louise Washington, 71, of Louisa, died Thursday, Jan. 9, 2003, at the University of Virginia Medical Center.
Born May 16, 1931, in Fairfax County, she was the daughter of the late James E. and Mary L. Brooks.
Mrs. Washington was a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
She is survived by her husband, Irving Washington of Louisa; her daughters, Carla R. Washington Derricott and her husband, Harold, of Caroline County, Sharon L. Washington Minor of Louisa, Donna L. Washington Ross and her husband, Wilson, of Caroline County, and Jeana L. Washington of Gordonsville; her sons, Barrett R. Washington and his wife, Karin, of Hyattsville, Md., and Tremelle G. Washington and his wife, Ann, of Gordonsville; 18 grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and a host of nieces, nephews and cousins.
Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, Gordonsville.
Lance W. Anderson
Funeral services for Lance Willard Anderson will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Preddy Funeral Home Chapel in Madison, with the Rev. Bill Clayton. Interment
will take place in Walker's United Methodist Church cemetery.
The family will receive friends one hour prior to the service at the funeral home.
Roy R. Bottenfield
A graveside service for Roy Raymond Bottenfield will be held at 2 p.m. today at Chestnut Grove Church cemetery in Earlysville. Dr. Roy S. Thomas III will officiate.
The family suggests that memorial contributions be made to the Roy Bottenfield Memorial Fund, C/O Elizabeth Bottenfield, 1000 Grove St.. Charlottesville, Va. 22903.
Anderson Funeral Home, Crozet, is in charge of arrangements.
Mary Jones
Mary McAfee Boyd Jones, 91, died Monday, Jan. 13, 2003, at Westminster Canterbury in Richmond, after a brief illness.
Born Jan. 17, 1911, in Louisville, Ky., she was the daughter of the late Belle Herndon and Robert Sherman Boyd and the beloved sister of the late John Robert Boyd.
Mrs. Jones attended Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Ga., and graduated from The Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond. She was a member of the Board of Collegiate Schools, Richmond, Friends of Davidson College, Davidson, N.C., President of the Women's Council of Sheltering Arms Hospital, Richmond, The Woman's Club, The Junior League, and President of the Boxwood Garden Club. Mrs. Jones was selected Richmond's Christmas Mother in 1954. She was a longtime active member of the Red Cross and the Richmond Symphony Council, a member of Colonial Dames and Daughters of the American Revolution, and a founding member of the Board of Westminster Canterbury.
She was the widow of Dr. James A. Jones, pastor of the Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C., from 1939-1954, and President of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond from 1954, until his death in 1966.
She is survived by her five children, Mary Jones Helm of Richmond, James Archibald Jones III of Orange, Robert Boyd Jones and his wife, Rebecca, of Wilmington, N.C., Ina Jones Hughs of Louisville, Tenn., and Anne Jones Logan and her husband, Mark, of Charlottesville; grandchildren, Frederick and Barbara Helm of Richmond, McNair and Diggs Bishop of Great Falls, James and Lena Jones of Berkeley, Calif., Richard Jones of Lexington Park, Md., Carolyn and Nicholas Henckel von Donnersmark of Fischbachau, Germany, Matthew and Jenny Jones of Louisville, Colo., Rebecca and Mark Westendorff and Robert and Rachel Jones of Wilmington, N.C., Kelley and Lock Jones of Whiteville, N.C., George Hughs of Toronto, Canada, McNair and Bruce Johnson of Houston, Texas, Claire Hughs of Augusta, Ga., Bret and Brette Logan of New Haven, Conn., and Catherine Logan of Washington, D.C.; 14 great-grandchildren; and her sister, AnnaBelle Boyd Sugg of Greenville, N.C.
Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at Laurinburg Presbyterian Church, Laurinburg, N.C., with Dr. O. Benjamin Sparks III, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, of Richmond, and the Rev. Elizabeth Forester of Laurinburg officiating, with Annette Sparks of Richmond, organist. Burial to follow at Hillside cemetery.
A memorial service is to be conducted at 2 p.m. Sunday at Westminster Canterbury in Richmond.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to the Westminster Canterbury Foundation, 1600 Westbrook Ave., Richmond, Va. 23227; Union Theological Seminary, 3401 Brook Rd., Richmond, Va. 23227; or Second Presbyterian Church, 5 North 5th St., Richmond, Va. 23219.
Elizabeth H. Koolage
Funeral services for Elizabeth House Higginbotham Koolage will be held at 11 a.m. today at Trinity United Methodist Church, Main Street, Orange. Interment
will be at 3 p.m. in the Higginbotham Family cemetery in Amherst.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003, at Calvary Methodist Church on Rowe Boulevard, Annapolis, Md.
The family has requested that anyone desiring to remember Betty through a memorial gift please consider Jacob's Ladder, an enrichment program for exceptionally gifted children who are at risk of not reaching their academic potential, P.O. Box 555, Urbanna, Va. 23175.
Preddy Funeral Home, Orange, is in charge of arrangements.
Eugene P. Pollard
A funeral service for Eugene Pritchard Pollard will be held at 2 p.m. today at Hinton Avenue United Methodist Church with the Rev. Edward A. Hopkins officiating. Interment
will follow at Monticello Memory Gardens.
Pallbearers will be the Brethren from Widow's Sons' Lodge No. 60 AF & AM.
The family requests that contributions be made to the Charlottesville/Albemarle Rescue Squad P.O. Box 160 Charlottesville, Va. 22907 or Hinton Avenue United Methodist Church 750 Hinton Avenue Charlottesville, Va. 22902.
Hill & Wood Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Earl Robert Ross
Earl Robert Ross peacefully passed away on Monday, Jan. 13, 2003, with his loving family by his side.
Earl was born March 2, 1928, in Ashtabula, Ohio, the son of the late Robert Riley Ross and Mary Hegfield Ross.
He is survived by his sons, Earl Robert Ross Jr. and his wife, Sherry; and Stuart Brian Ross; daughters, Cynthia Leigh Ross and Brenda Ross Lam; he was the loving grandfather of, Brandon and Chrystal Gibson, Jordan, Grant, Corey and Miranda Ross.
Earl was a veteran of World War II. He served in the U.S. Army where he was ultimately stationed in Japan as a member of the occupational forces. After being honorably discharged from the Army, he continued to serve his country by enlisting in the Air Force Reserves.
A man who was continuously educating himself, Earl enjoyed success in several professions as a Pharmacist, a Patent Attorney, and eventually became a Practicing Attorney. Highlights of his career include becoming Director of Pharmacy, Norfolk General Hospital; Patent Attorney for Lever Bros., Allied Chemical Corp and Merck & Co.; and having his own law practice in Flemington, N.J.
After retiring from his Law Practice, Earl was employed by Old Dominion Eye Bank of Richmond Virginia. He was also employed as a Consulting Pharmacist advising third world hospitals on pharmaceutical services.
Earl was a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and School of law; and U.S. Patent Academy.
He was recognized for his volunteer work with the Charlottesville Free Clinic, an Ombudsman for the Jefferson Board of Aging, the American Cancer Society of Richmond, the Hospital Albert Schweitzer of Deschaplles, Haiti, and the Cross Medical Center of Glen Allen, Alaska.
A family memorial service will be held at a later date.
The family suggests that memorials be made to The Hospice of the Piedmont, 1490 Pantops Mountain Place, Suite 200, Charlottesville, Va. 22911.
Mildred Eunice Rowe
Mildred Eunice Craft Rowe, 89, widow of Willard Henry Rowe, of 1029 Westmoreland Drive, Staunton, died Monday, Jan. 13, 2003.
Owner of Mrs. Rowe's Family Restaurant and Bakery, she was born Aug. 31, 1913, in the Allegheny Highlands community of Rich Patch, where she worked side by side with her parents, John Henry and Ruth Anne Wilson Craft and ten siblings on their family farm. Her parents families were both pioneer families in that region.
When she was a teenager in the 1930's, she worked for a rayon factory in Covington, she quickly became a supervisor. Mildred had also worked at a butcher shop and as a bookkeeper, both skills she would draw on as she ventured into the business world when purchasing her first restaurant in Goshen in 1947, with her then husband, Eugene DiGrassi. She and Eugene had three children, Brenda, Linda and Michael.
DiGrassi's Grille first opened as a luncheonette, serving breakfast and lunch to the locals as well as those passing through on Route 42. Traveling salesmen, parents picking up their children at Camp Virginia, and vacationers to the Homestead all frequented the tiny eatery. Word of her homestyle cooking; fried chicken, barbecue, burgers, cobblers, and pies spread quickly through the neighboring towns. Regulars came from Lexington, Roanoke, and Staunton. Not just the food brought customers in, it was Mildred's personality. She was always friendly, quickwitted, and a bit sassy. In 1951, she took a customers advice and renamed the place "The Far-Famed, " because of its spreading reputation.
After Mildred and Eugene divorced, she supported herself and her three children while running the restaurant in Goshen. She counted on the help of family. Mildred worked hard to build her business, so hard that as one Goshen resident puts it, "You won't find any pictures of her during that time, she was always moving too fast."
In 1953, when she married
Willard Rowe, who owned a little barbecue roadhouse in Staunton called "Perks Barbecue, " with a seating capacity of about 40, Mildred moved there and took everything she learned about the restaurant business with her to help create one of the most successful family-owned restaurant businesses in Virginia. The couple oversaw two expansions with an eventual seating of 225.
The newly married
Willard and Mildred lived in the basement of the tiny establishment. Mildred cooked in the morning and waitressed in the evening. By the time their daughter Ginger was born in 1956, an apartment was built over the renovated restaurant for the family. About the time Ginger was four, the Rowe's purchased their home on Westmoreland Drive.
Even though Mildred mostly stayed home with her children at that time, she kept a hand in the business. She taste-tested the food often. (Once a cook was promptly fired by her for attempting to use instant mashed potatoes.) She went into the restaurant often to greet customers. It is this skill that she greatly excelled. Her banter and friendly, quick laughter kept customers coming.
Willard preceded her in death on Feb. 13, 1973, and Mildred, with the help of her children, took over the restaurant, which was enjoying even more and more success.
Her hard work, tenacity, common-sense, and down-home approach to business and cooking has served the establishment and the community well.
She has become a community icon. Several local legends have sprung up about her. All of them are true. One such story is about the pregnant woman who had a craving for Mildred's fried chicken. As luck would have it, she went into labor before she could get her chicken, so Mildred took some chicken to her in the hospital.
The restaurant has been featured in over 250 newspapers and national magazines such as "Gourmet" and "Travel and Leisure, " which named Rowe's as one of the 100 Great American Breakfasts. Jane and Michael Stern, national food writers, have written about Mrs. Rowe, "We could go on and on, dish by dish, but suffice to say that anything you order at Rowe's will be good regional fare prepared with culinary skill close to genius."
Alone with all of her business accomplishments, Mildred was mother of four, a grandmother of 11, and known to many as "Moo Moo." The love of family, hard work, good food, and hospitality prevails through the generations. Her son, Mike DiGrassie has managed the restaurant since 1987, and her daughter, Brenda Hathaway and son-in-law, Terry LeMasurier, managed it before that. She also has a grandson, Aaron DiGrassie, who now cooks at the restaurant. This family will, no doubt, keep her legacy thriving.
She is survived by a son Michael DiGrassie and his wife, Mary Lou, of Staunton; three daughters, Brenda Hathaway and her husband, Curtis, of Charlottesville, Linda Hanna and her husband, Dr. Stevan T. Hanna, of Staunton, and Ginger LeMasurier and her husband, Terry, of Nellysford; two sisters, Bertha Mays of Staunton and Virginia Bowers of Covington; 11 grandchildren, Sara Harrison and her husband, Peter, Anne Finley, Wynne DiGrassie Reiners and her husband, Scott, Aaron DiGrassie, Stevan Hanna and his wife, Christine, David Hanna, Grey Hanna, Nicholas LeMasurier, Kate LeMasurier, Jane LeMasurier, and Leslie LeMasurier; and a number of nieces and nephews.
In addition to her parents and husband, she was preceded in death by a step-daughter, Constance Rowe.
Burial will be private.
A memorial service will be conducted at 11 a.m. Thursday in St. Paul's United Methodist Church by the Rev. Barbara Sawyer and the Rev. David W. Lord.
The family will receive friends in the fellowship hall of the church following the service.
Active pallbearers will be her grandsons and a nephew, Carroll Mays.
Memorial donations may be made to the St. Paul's United Methodist Church Building Fund, 2000 Shutterlee Mill Road, Staunton, Va. 24401.
Henry Funeral Home, Staunton, is in charge of arrangements.
Steven Earl Squire
Stephen Earl Squire, 61, of Richmond, died Friday, Jan. 3, 2003, after a brief illness.
He was the son of Evelyn Silverman Squire and the late Abraham Squire of Brooklyn, N.Y. and San Mateo, Calif.
He is survived by his wife, Coles Squire; two sons, Thomas Aaron and his wife, Bao Tran Squire, of Twin Lakes, Wis., and Robert M. Squire of Richmond; his sister, Ellen Richardson Squire of Brooklyn, N.Y.; brothers, James Squire of Seattle, Wash., and Jonathan Squire and his wife, Janis, of San Mateo, Calif.
He graduated from Brooklyn College and received a masters degree from the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was employed by the Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Criminal Justice Services as departmental librarian and actively shared his enthusiasm for history and historic sites. He was dedicated to the cause of peace and justice.
A memorial service was held in Richmond on Tuesday, January 7, 2003, at the Parham Chapel, Woody Funeral Home, 1771 Parham Rd.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Tuckahoe Volunteer Rescue Squad.
Keith M. Taylor
Services for will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Walkers United Methodist Church in Madison, interment will follow a brief graveside service at 3 p.m. at Sunset Memorial Gardens in Chester.
The family will receive friends from 7 to 8:30 p.m. today at the Preddy Funeral Home in Orange.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Walkers United Methodist Church, HCR 5, Box 338, Radiant, Va. 22732.
Thomas H. Courtney
Thomas H. Courtney passed away Monday, Jan. 13, 2003, at his home with his family in Houghton, Mich., after a courageous battle against cancer.
He was born Sept. 26, 1938, in Dallas, Texas, a son of the late Thomas P. and Regina Courtney, long-time residents of Mahanoy City, Pa.
In addition to his parents, he is preceded in death by his brother, Cormac Courtney.
He graduated from Mahanoy City High School in 1956, and received a BS Degree in Metallurgy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1960. He went on to get a MS Degree in Engineering Physics from Cornell University and a Doctor of Science in Physical Metallurgy from MIT
Tom was a beloved father, grandfather, friend, devoted teacher, a respected colleague and an elder statesman of the "NBA" (the semi-formal Noon Basketball Association that played at Michigan Tech's SDC)
Tom preferred the classroom to the boardroom, spending 35 years as a college professor, 21 of those years teaching at Michigan Technological University, six years at the University of Virginia and seven years at the University of Texas at Austin. From teaching introductory courses in a lecture hall of up to 250 graduates, to guiding countless numbers of MS and Ph.D. students through their dissertations and beyond, Tom was a mentor to many. As one former student, herself now a professor, wrote recently. Tom approached each of his students in a unique manner, as though they had weighed our abilities, our challenges, and our personalities to determine what we each needed from him to succeed and then gave that freely. He encouraged us by example to do our best and to approach our setbacks and obstacles as the learning opportunities that they are. He served as our teacher, mentor, and friend. It is with a great deal of gratitude and pride that I say I am one of Tom Courtney's Students.
Tom's professional impact extended beyond the three universities where he had academic appointments. His authoritative textbooks were highly regarded and used extensively. His research publications, typically co-authored by his research students, were pace-setting and well received in the wide variety of fields in which he and his students worked.
Last year, Tom was named as the 2003 recipient of the prestigious Albert Easton White Distinguished Teacher Award of ASM International. The White Award is presented during their annual meeting in the fall and recognizes highly productive professors who are outstanding in their ability to inspire students. The award citation is "For a sustained, productive academic career in teaching, research, and administration throughout which he inspired students to achieve the highest levels of academic and subsequently, professional career accomplishment."
Tom is survived by his former wife, Mary Beth; their children, Cindy Courtney and her husband, Andres Piacentini, of Hopkinton, Mass, Hugh Courtney and his wife, Pamela Loprest, of Takoma Park, Md., Ed Courtney of Thomasville, N.C., and Heather Courtney of Austin, Texas; his grandchildren, Kenan and Peyton Courtney, Joseph and Anna Courtney, and David Piacentini; his sisters, Patricia Inserra and her husband, Louis, of Port Matilda, Pa., and Margaret Courtney of Cambridge, Mass.; and several nieces and nephews.
Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday in the Memorial Chapel Funeral Home of Hancock, Mich., followed by a luncheon at 1 p.m. to be held at the Memorial Union Ballroom on Michigan Tech's Campus.
In lieu of other expressions of sympathy, the family suggests memorials be given in Tom's name to either the Keweenaw Home Nursing & Hospice at 311 Sixth Street, Calumet, Mich. 49913, or to the Hospice of your choice.
