Obituary
On December 7, 2023 the greater Boston area lost one of its most delightful and fun-loving residents. Sandra DeShaffon Ross passed to the better life just months before her eightieth birthday, a source of great sadness for all those who know and love her. Among her final pronouncements, she reflected on her life with her customary cheerfulness, exclaiming, “What a ride! No regrets!”
Daughter of Roy and Lula DeShaffon, and widow of Robert Merlin Ross (who passed away in 2019), Sandy Ross spent most of her life in Kansas City, Missouri, where she and Bob raised their daughter, Sarah Gwyneth Ross. Adventures of different kinds took her many other places, however, including to Syracuse University, where she and her husband both earned their Masters in Library Science. After joining AT&T in the early 1980s as an archivist, Sandy in time made her way into the marketing division of that corporation and ultimately joined their management team. After her retirement in 1998, not wanting to get too lazy, she worked at a grocery store near the Ross residence in Brookside, a lovely little neighborhood full of bungalows not too far from Kansas City’s famous Plaza district. A voracious reader of all kinds of books (but especially mysteries), she managed to keep herself entertained — even as a recent widow! — throughout the Covid years. But when her daughter, a professor of history at Boston College, suggested a move to the Boston area in 2021, Sandy leapt on it. By the autumn of that year, she had sold her beloved yellow bungalow and relocated to an apartment in Somerville, MA, a few blocks away from her daughter. While some people might find a big move like that in their golden years challenging if not downright traumatizing, dauntless Sandy took to the Boston area like the proverbial duck to water. She delighted in weekly dinner swaps with Sarah, and capitalized on all the great new things to do in her new hometown. Among her favorite spots to visit was the Long Wharf (where she is pictured in this image), but she also dearly loved walking to Cambridge to look at the Charles, visiting all the nice little shops and cafes in Davis Square, and hunting up new branches of area public libraries. Sandy definitely made an immediate and happy transition to this new world!
Sandy enjoyed a whole year of pure play in Boston before an emergent cancer started to dampen the fun somewhat; but many adventures were still possible, including a mother-daughter trip to London, England this past summer. And to the last Sandy remained her bright, positive self. The loss of this beautiful soul is mourned especially by her daughter Sarah; her daughter’s partner, Sharon Gentges; their dear friend, Ginny Reinburg; and Sandy’s sister, Carol DeShaffon of Tulsa, Oklahoma. But many other friends old and new feel this loss.
Sandy’s deathbed injunction to Sarah was this: “Have more fun!” Sarah promised that she would do so, and she asks that any and all well-wishers do likewise in her mother’s name.