Community
John and Marilyn Ross lived together, left together and will rest together
When doctors told Marilyn Ross in January that she likely had only a few months to live, her first thought was for her husband.
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John Ross, a member of one of the pioneer Croatian families that settled in Gig Harbor, lived in a memory care facility. Marilyn visited him every day.
“Her main concern, over everything, was that dad was taken care of,” their son Marc said recently. “The finances, that people were going up there (to visit). …
“It took a while to convince her that he was being taken care of.”
John ended up going first, on March 16. But Marilyn’s concern for John reflected the deep love they shared, which formed the foundation for a tight-knit family.
Marilyn didn’t stick around for long after John departed. She died 15 days later, on March 31.
The Ross family is hosting a celebration of life event for John and Marilyn at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 28, at 3608 and 3600 Rosedale St. in Gig Harbor. A private graveside service will be at Haven of Rest on Thursday, June 26 — their 77th wedding anniversary.
John and Marilyn Ross. Photo courtesy of Marc Ross
Meeting over a root beer
John and Marilyn met at a Kruger’s Triple XXX Root Beer Barrel Drive-In in Tacoma. At least that’s how Jake Bujacich, John’s cousin and lifelong best friend, remembers it. He was there.
Later, when the cousins served in the Merchant Marines together, “he only talked about Marilyn, Marilyn, Marilyn,” Bujacich said.
The two had very different personalities. Maybe that’s why it worked.
“Dad and mom were kind of a yin and a yang,” Marc Ross said. “Dad was very calm. Mom could be … explosive at times. But the way they worked together was pretty incredible.”
“When they first got married, people said, ‘That ain’t going to last,'” Bujacich recalled. “Well, 77 years later …”
John Ross
John Ross was born Oct. 30, 1927, in the family home on the corner of Harborview Drive and Dorotich Street. People who knew him called him Johnny Boy to differentiate him from the other two Johns then in the family (the number has now grown to six).
The first John Ross immigrated from Croatia in the 1880s and wasn’t a John Ross at all. The surname Jadrosic was Anglicized to Ross at Ellis Island.
Johnny Boy, in keeping with the family business, started out as a fisherman. He named his gillnetter the Marilyn R. as a tribute to his wife, who was born Marilyn Romaneski.
Marilyn and John Ross onboard the Marilyn R. Photo by Marc Ross
The fishing life didn’t agree with him. He later worked for a soda distributor and owned a restaurant before setting into a successful career in real estate.
“Dad was a natural salesman,” Marc Ross said.
“He was easygoing. Everybody liked him,” Bujacich said.
“I fought everybody in this town,” added Bujacich, a former Gig Harbor police officer, mayor and Pierce County commissioner. “Except, Johnny Boy and I never fought (each other), never got mad.”
Ross remained active late in life, golfing regularly and keeping pace with descendants two and three generations his junior during family trips to Reno. Even after moving in to a memory care facility, he took daily walks and chatted up fellow residents.
A young Johnny Boy Ross (center) on his family’s dock in 1945. Photo courtesy of Marc Ross
Marilyn Ross
One thing he didn’t do: Cook. Bujacich said his cousin was “one of the few Slav guys who didn’t cook.” Marc Ross said “boiling water would have been a challenge.”
In that, he was lucky in love. Family members said Marilyn was an excellent cook, baker and canner.
Even last fall, at age 93, she was still making pies from blackberries picked and delivered to her by family and friends.
Her talents ranged far beyond the kitchen, and beyond what might have been considered usual for a woman of her generation.
Marilyn Ross
She was an avid golfer, for one, both with John and with a ladies’ group. She also ran his real estate office, and her talents for organization extended to politics.
A political neophyte, Marilyn managed Bujacich’s campaign for Pierce County commissioner in 1980 against Clay Huntington, an incumbent who had planned to run for governor and encouraged Bujacich to seek his old seat.
The governor race didn’t go well and Huntington told Bujacich he wanted to keep his county post. Bujachich says he told Huntington, “I already quit all my other jobs” to campaign — one of those jobs being mayor of Gig Harbor.
“They kept telling us, ‘You haven’t got a chance against Clay.’ It ended up, we beat him 2-1,” Bujacich said. “They all came down and wanted to know how to run a campaign. They were talking to Marilyn: ‘What did you do?’ ”
‘Just a number’
Like her husband, Marilyn remained active and vital late in life.
Her attitude, daughter Susie Ross said, was:
“It’s just a number, it’s not an age. It doesn’t matter, and she lived by that. My mom was in better shape when she passed than anyone sitting in here,” she said, gesturing at a room full of family and one overweight reporter.
“There was nothing that she wouldn’t do. She shouldn’t have done some of them, probably, but nothing would stop her.”
‘Ready to go’
Staying active included visiting Johnny Boy every day after he moved to memory care. She still drove herself there until shortly before his death.
Given her diagnosis, she expected that she would die first. She took news of her husband’s death hard.
“When mom heard he had passed, she was heartbroken,” Marc said. “But at that point, it was like, ‘We’re all shutting down.’ She was ready to go.”
Having spent a lifetime together, the Rosses naturally wanted to be laid to rest together as well. They made arrangements for a shared tombstone that bears only their names and one line: “We were married for …”
“We just had to fill in the number 77,” Marc Ross said.