We will start a series of Blogs about people involved with Handmade NC Baskets in a moment, but I first wanted to give you an update about our travels this week. For Mother’s Day, we took my Mom (Joyce Ross) to the Atlanta, GA area to visit Gibbs Gardens, Callaway Gardens, the Jimmy Carter Museum and Library, FDR’s Little White House and Ocmulgee National Historic Site. Mom had missed a trip to Gibbs Gardens last year when she was helping her dear friend who subsequently passed away. If you ever get the chance, you owe it to yourself to visit Gibbs. The pictures this week are from Gibbs. The landowner had been developing this landscape and specialty garden for over thirty years and just recently opened it to the public.
Also this week, I wanted to start a series of profiles about folks associated with HNCB, and what better place to start than the person who helped get it all started, my Mom. When Joni first started making baskets, it was a hobby, but if you know Joni, she was on the lookout for a bigger outlet for her passion. My mother was working with a gift shop (the Peachtree) in Aiken, SC and suggested that Joni put some baskets in the shop. So…. Mom is responsible for Joni’s first sale!
Joyce Ross is from Detroit,MI where she met my Dad, Chuck Ross, in high school. After Dad graduated from Purdue with a Chemical Engineering Degree, they married. They lived in Champaign, IL for 18 months while Dad earned a master’s degree, where Mom worked as a Switchboard Gal for AT&T. They moved to SC when Dad was hired by DuPont at the Savannah River Plant during the Cold War (I still don’t know what he actually did there). Since she was not allowed to attend college in her teens, Mom went to Augusta College to get here education degree in the 1970’s. Soon after graduating as the oldest student in her class, she taught third grade at North Augusta Elementary. Soon after Dad was transferred to Delaware by DuPont (they moved out of the house I grew up in while Joni and I were on our honeymoon! At last they waited until after the wedding!!).
In Delaware, Mom realized another dream, to work in a museum as a historian and antique expert. Mom was hired as a full time guide at Winterthur in Wilmington, DE. Winterthur is a pretty prestigious place in museum circles, and on one trip back to Detroit, Mom arranged a private guided tour to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village. The young tour guide who had Mom as her responsibility for the day was apparently a little nervous, as indicated after the tour in the cafeteria. Mom was eating alone when she noticed that her tour guide was eating with a friend just across the way, and she overheard, “…and OMG she was from WINTERTHUR!!! and I was so nervous.” Humbling to say the least, but to us, she was just Mom, of course.
When my Dad was again transferred to Washington, DC to liaise with the Department of Energy, Mom became a docent at the National History Museum for several years. All of this served her well back in Aiken, SC when she became director of the Aiken County Historical Society Museum. She oversaw the museum’s move to a historic (larger) building. Now retired from professional tour guiding, she just tells us where to go! She still lives in Aiken, SC and hosts us when we teach at the SPCA in Aiken.
Mom has always loved history and has been a constant supporter of Joni’s work. She arranged for Joni to give a lecture in Aiken. She has sold Joni’s baskets in museum and other gift shops. She helped Joni transition from hobby to full-fledged hobby-business, and when we had a booth at a fall art and craft show in Aiken, Mom held down the cash register (that is her at the cash register in the Photo Gallery section). She has never been an employee of HNCB, but we should all appreciate that HNCB would probably not exist without her. She really earned that trip to Gibbs last week!
Thanks for letting me brag about my Mom for so long, that’s all for now….
Remember, its a beautiful day, don’t let it slip away…..
David
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