Going Home
We lost another family member. Robert Leedy Woolery, II passed away on September 22, 2024. Everyone called him “Doda”. He was 80 years old and the younger brother (by 17 years) of Mary Jane Woolery Chisholm, “Gigi”, and my dear great-uncle. He was like a father to me, his children were my age and like my siblings. There is nothing he would not do for me or I would not do for him.
When you lose 2 people so special to you, within a short amount of time, it is a hard blow. Both Gigi and Doda were the matriarch and patriarch of their perspective families. They had the presence and the strength to lead. They loved with all their hearts and stood by their families through thick and thin. There are not enough words to say that would convey how amazing they were.
After the lovely funeral services for Doda, my family and I took a trip around Ashland and Russell, Kentucky to see the old home place. The towns are located on the south side of the Ohio River with Ohio to the north and West Virginia to the northwest. The area was booming during post World War II through the 1970’s. Steel, oil, coal and railroad companies thrived and the Ohio River was the channel which led it all to lands beyond these small towns. Nothing much has changed and everything has changed. The communities are still bonded together but the economy has taken its toll and where jobs were once plentiful they are less opportunities now.
Going back to my grandmother’s and great uncle’s home was a bit of an epiphany. If my grandfather, E. Morris Chisholm, had not been working for HCM and gone to Russell in 1945 for a job in the largest privately owned railroad yard in the world, and stayed next door in Ms. Sutton’s boarding house, they would have never met and I would not be here. I believe in fate but the element of chance here is unfathomable. We rode by the railroad yards, Ohio River, their childhood home which my great-grandmother Inez lived in until she passed in December of 1993. It was rainy and grey and few words were spoken as we drove around. I soaked up the feelings, opened my heart to the memories, embraced their lovely souls.
My 13 year old son was a bit confused about what we were doing and why. I explained that it is important to know where your roots lie, to visit and pay respect. I’m not sure he got it and that’s ok. Maybe it takes a few years, like I have, to stop and look, to ponder and appreciate, to miss and to love those that were here and now gone.
RIP Doda. You will never be forgotten. Thank you for all of your wise words, support and inspiration. You were one-of-a-kind and we love you.
