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Week of June 12-18, 2002

HELENE ELAINE (COLE) ROSS

HELENE ELAINE (COLE) ROSS is, indeed a living legend that is as much a part of the rich and glorious history of Houston, Texas’ Fifth Ward, as Ross Mortuary that has served the community since 1939. Although Helene was born the day after Christmas in 1913, to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Cole in Lafayette, Louisiana, she belongs to Houston, where she was educated, fell in love and married her soul mate, the late Burnett Ross, who she helped write many indelible pages in Black Houston’s history books.

Lady Ross was honored at the Independent Funeral Directors Association of Texas, Inc., 45th Awards Banquet on May 15, 2002, in the Grand Ballroom at Hotel Sofitel, 425 North Beltway 8. There were musical preludes by Frankie L. Washington and Barry J. W. Franklin. Rev. Jerald Edwards gave the Invocation, which was followed by Dr. Gregory Spencer’s song of tribute. There were other accolades-- by Anthony Kay, Dr. E. Delores Guynes, Stephanie Barkley, Jessie Tuttle, James Stripling, Charles Collins, Troy B. Smith, Carol Cotton, Noel Cotton and Rev. Eddie R. Johnson—that set the stage for Dr. Thomas F. Freeman’s dynamic keynote speech.

Surely, it was only fitting for Mrs. Ross to be feted as the 69-year-old organization’s 2002 Professional of the Year. Nevertheless, it is even more fitting that African- American News&Issues thumb through the annals of Black Houston’s history to properly introduce you to the real Helene Elaine Ross, who worked by her dynamic husband’s side to make a lasting impact on Fifth Ward’s economy. As the program revealed, Helene who spent most of her youth in Beaumont, Texas met and married Burnett in 1939, the same year they decided to go into the funeral business.
However, let’s go back a bit further, to 1928… when a willowy beauty named Helene Elaine Cole, became the Phillis Wheatley High School’s first drum major. Everybody in Black Houston was excited about Wheatley that was formerly a white elementary school, attended by kids living in Denver Harbor. Unfortunately (or fortunately for Black Fifth Warders), the kids had to pass through several blocks of the encroaching African- American neighborhoods to attend school. It was wisely decided by HISD, that Denver Harbor’s children would be better served if the school was bequeathed to the Black community.

On January 31, 1927, Phillis Wheatley held its first classes in the old McGowen Elementary School at 3415 Lyons. E.O. Smith had been moved from BTW (nee Old Colored High), to become Wheatley’s principal. Smith and 19 faculty members greeted 450 students that also had been moved from the Fourth Ward School, on Wheatley’s first day of classes. Many tend to believe that Wheatley chose the best and brightest students at BTW, insofar as Willie Lewis, one of the smartest kids in HISD, quickly became Editor-in-Chief of “The Megaphone,” a monthly student publication, that spon-sored by Bessie H. Johnson.
In May 1927, Wheatley graduated its first class. Jewell Woodard was the valedictorian and the salutatorian was R.T. Holland. Meanwhile, a dapper young man name Burnett Ross had his eye on the willowy drum major, although he was already courting Winnie Mae Fonteno, one of the prettiest girls at Wheatley. Providentially, it was Helene who was destined to become Mrs. Burnett Ross after she finished high school in 1930. In the early days, the mortuary located at 3618 Lyons, was called Brooks & Ross, insofar as Burnett obviously had a partner named Brooks. But, alas, nobody today seems to remember Brook’s first name.

On the other hand, the name Brooks and Ross became unforgettably. “The Bloody Fifth’s” most popular cliché was, “Negro, if you mess with me, Brooks and Ross is coming to get you.” Trash talking aside, at the time Brooks & Ross had a contract with the city to provide what was called a “Hot Shot,” that provided the only emergency ambulance service in Fifth Ward and other areas in northeast Houston, that was mostly semi-rural, wooded suburbs at the time. Burnett and Helene, always looking for a way to make a buck, weren’t satisfied with only one business, therefore a few years later they opened a drug store adjourning the Lyons Theatre, on the corner of Lyons Avenue and Benson Street.
The small drug store was famous for it’s double dip ice cream cones and flips (malts or shakes), that 1940s’ Fifth Ward kids grew up enjoying. Later the drug store was moved across the street and enlarged. Meanwhile, Helene was raising her daughter Jo Anne. Tragically Jo Anne died in 1952 and the Rosses quickly filled the void by adopting two daughters, Susan Denise and Burnell Elaine. After raising her family to high school age, Helene went back to school herself in 1969 and obtained her Funeral Directors license. In hindsight, Helene’s decision to become even more qualified to run Ross Mortuary was prophetic.

Burnett was working late when two men broke into the funeral home and he was shot and seriously wounded by one of them. From that time on, Helene had to keep their thriving business going and nurse her husband back to health. Although Burnett recovered, he was slightly crippled and was never the same on the dance floor, where he had dazzled Houston’s most proficient hoofers. The street thugs who loved Burnett for his kindness, helped police track down the perpetrators. The shooter was arrested in Louisiana and expedited back to Houston to stand trial. Tragedy also touched the Ross family recently, when Helene and her daughter Burnell were injured in an auto accident, but are now fully recovered.

Burnell, who is as demure as her father was flamboyant, basically runs the funeral home (with her husband Edward Loche, who ironically is a member of a funeral home family in Louisiana), in a manner in which father would be extremely proud. Through it all, Helene Elaine Ross, at 88 is as feisty as ever, but is at peace and fully satisfied with her many contributions to her community, after enduring the storms and rains of life. She still makes some decisions at Ross Mortuary, but mostly she is content to enjoy her grandchildren, which include: Burnell and Ed’s children - Ed Jr. and Edwina who recently married Ashley Levy. Susan also has two children, Regina and Bernadette, who have given Helene five great-grandchildren to spoil.

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