YEARS TOGETHER END IN DEATHS AN HOUR APART

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 23, 1993                   TAG: 9303230253
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
YEARS TOGETHER END IN DEATHS AN HOUR APART
Auvie and Lula Gross had been each other's life for 56 years.
Sunday, the Roanoke couple died of natural causes - a little more than an hour apart.
Auvie Gross was 92. Lula, his wife, was 82.
"I was lucky that their health was as good as long as it was," said Martin Gross, their son.
Auvie Gross had been the picture of health before he started ailing in January. Last summer, he was still fit enough to mow his lawn, clean out the gutters on his house and drive a car.
But last Tuesday, he had a heart attack that left him in a coma. His kidneys were failing and his family made the decision to take him off life-support systems.
Lula Gross, a housewife, had been fretting over her husband's illness all week when she started complaining of chest pains.
"The ordeal must have been too much for her," Martin Gross said.
Friday, he took her to the doctor's office, where she suffered a heart attack and went into respiratory arrest.
She was taken to Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where her husband also was being treated.
Saturday, she appeared on her way to recovery, but her health started failing again Sunday.
"Mama, she worried about him," Martin Gross said. "I know they were devoted to each other."
Monday, that devotion was still touching the son and two grandchildren they left behind.
"Mom, she was the best mom in the world," Martin Gross said. "The older she got the prettier she got."
Auvie Gross was a former machinist at the Norfolk Naval Air Station until he and his wife moved to Roanoke in 1967.
"He was sort of a stern person," Martin Gross remembered. "He was a conservative gentlemen."
Still, his two grandchildren remember the times Nanny and Pop Pop would take them to Lakeside Amusement Park.
"They loved the rides," Martin Gross said of the couple who married in 1936.
Neighbors along Cannady Road Northeast were still in shock Monday.
"It's just a tragedy," said Cecile Whitener, who used to look after the Grosses' mail when they went out of town. They'd do the same for her.
"They were lovely neighbors," Whitener said. "You don't find that very much today."
Sam Hopkins, 70, another neighbor, said he'll miss Auvie Gross as a fishing partner.
"He was ready to try anything I wanted to do," said Hopkins, noting that they last fished together when Auvie Gross was age 91.
Juanita Hopkins, his wife, remembered talking to Lula Gross a little over a week ago, when her husband first went into the hospital.
"Without him, it wouldn't be the same," she remembered Lula Gross saying. "I think the Lord honored her plan."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB