ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996 TAG: 9610170067
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA Z. RAUCH STAFF WRITER
CAROL Weeks was outside washing her lawn furniture before putting it away for the season when the phone rang the first time. She couldn't get inside quick enough to answer it.
In fact, her father, Robert Thomas, couldn't get any of his five children to pick up the phone that warm, sunny, fall Saturday.
Weeks' sister, Doris Smith of Vinton, a shipper for Aramark, was at a friend's house picking up a book.
Their brothers weren't home either. Carson, a housekeeper at Roanoke College, was working on one of the school's sidewalks. Bev, a barrel racer and farrier, was off in Ohio at a horse show. Terry, a truck driver, can't remember exactly why he wasn't home but remembers it was Doris who finally broke the news to him.
It was Faye Strausbaugh, who organized senior citizens' trips for Roanoke County, who finally reached Carol Weeks that day. "When she called and said I have bad news about your mother, death never crossed my mind," said Weeks, who is a supervisor in accounts payable at Norfolk Southern. "You wouldn't ever have thought she'd have heart problems."
Lois Thomas was a young 65, very active, and only weighed 105 pounds. She never smoked or drank. She loved to travel, to flatfoot and to sing.
"But she did love to worry," Smith said. That's the only thing she can think of that may have caused her mother's heart to give out.
Thomas was on a pleasure trip when she died of a massive heart attack Oct. 22, 1988, in Gatlinburg, Tenn., just before she was to board the bus to come back home.
"She was still shopping 20 minutes before she died," Weeks said. Her bags held a little souvenir for each of her kids and her husband: a horse for Bev, a bell for Doris, pens for Carol and T-shirts for the rest of the guys. Earlier that day, she had posed at one of those old-time photo shops in a Victorian dress with a lace fan and ruffled hat.
She was on the trip with her husband's sister, Ruby Brown. Her husband, Robert Thomas, who died of cancer three years later, didn't like to travel. "He said he had seen everything he needed to see in the Navy," Smith said. But that didn't keep her mom from taking trips. She traveled, usually with her sisters, to Niagara Falls, the Pennsylvania Amish country, Hershey Park, the New Orleans World Fair and Graceland.
Each year since Lois Thomas' death, her children have gathered on a fall day to share family stories and memories.
Sunday, two days short of the eighth anniversary of their mother's death, the five siblings and some of their children will walk together in the fifth annual Roanoke Valley American Heart Walk at Green Hill Park.
"This will be a chance for us to do something positive instead of crying and moaning," Weeks said.
To collect contributions, they are sending letters to relatives, visiting their parents' neighbors in the Bore Auger area of Bedford County, and asking friends for support.
"I haven't asked a soul who didn't want to give me some money," Weeks said.
They will wear white sweat shirts adorned with red heart stickers. They have asked contributors to write the name of someone close to them who has suffered from or died of heart disease on the stickers. "That makes it more personal for the person making the donation," Smith said.
The walking group calls itself M.O.M. for "Memory of Mama." The memories of Lois Thomas are still strong for all of them, but different.
Carson Thomas, the oldest, misses going to visit his parents on Sundays. "My boys were little then, and I'd take them over there every Sunday," he said.
"She was sort of my information line," said second eldest, Carol Weeks. "We were so busy with our own lives." She could talk to her mother and find out what everyone else was up to in just one call. "She was the hub, and it's gone."
Bev Thomas, who lived on his parents' farm until last week, misses just "seeing her every day. I'd play tricks on her, too." He traveled frequently to horse shows and would usually call her from the road to let her know he'd be home in a few days. Sometimes he would tease her by calling from the driveway.
Terry, the youngest, can't pin it down quite that precisely. "I miss a whole lot," he said. "Just her being there, really, just the little things she'd do for us."
Doris Smith, the middle child, misses her mother's birthday and Christmas cards. "If you didn't get any others, you knew that one was coming. She could pick the prettiest cards."
She also recalls that her mother was child No. 6 in a family of 14. She remembers that because her grandmother assigned a Beatitude to each of her children as they were born. Her mother's, the sixth, reads "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.''
That is a memory all of Lois Thomas' children can take comfort in.
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. ERIC BRADY/Staff. Siblings - (from left) Terryby CNBThomas, Bev Thomas, Doris Smith, Carol Weeks and Carson Thomas - are
turning their grief over their mother's death of a heart attack into
positive action. color. 2. Lois Thomas posed for this picture at an
old-time photo shop in Gatlinburg, Tenn., the day she died, Oct. 22,
1988.