Josephine Stuart  FORBES

When Josephine Stuart Forbes was born on June 10, 1900, her father, Robert, was 37, and her mother, Agnes, was 34. On July 2, 1920 she married Cecil John Moore. She was living in Kitchener, Ontario at the time of her marriage to Ceil John Moore. In 1922 she and her husbad Cecil left Canada for Cochranton, Pennsylvania, USA. There Cecil had tried to make a go of it working for his brother, Howard, at MorCo, a company he started. The story goes that Cecil got tired of lving on cucumber sandwiches and moved on. In 1927 or 1028 Josephine left Cochranton, Pennsylvania with her 2 sons Wilbur and Lionel. She ended up in Gardiner, Montana where she found work as a waitress at Shaw's Hotel where she met her future husband Elmer Joseph Risse. They were married October 11, 1930. They had one daughter, Patricia in October of 1931.

In 1935 after losing everyhting in a house fire she, my father, Wilbur, his brother, Lionel (aka Larry) traveled from Colorado to Los Angeles, California on a train. They didn't have much money, but they made it.
I have many fond memories of those times as a little girl when I would stay with her in San Pedro, California where she lived for many years. I remember going over to her house to stay on weekends and during summer vacation. I loved those times. One house that she lived in had a rolling hill in the frontyard. I used to lay on my side and roll down it like kids do.
She was a saleswoman for Avon for 50 years. Never having a driver's license, we used to walk her route. The weather was always nice and we loved the time together.
How lucky we were to have her in our lives. I'll remember always the gentle smiles, laughing eyes and loving heart.


photo/ portrait (above) from familysearch.org