Mabel Short

Mabel Dutton Short WISE, Va. Mrs. Mabel Dutton Short went to her eternal and well-deserved rest on Dec. 26, 2009, at the Heritage Hall Health Care in Wise. Mrs. Short was born in a coal camp in Hellier, Ky. She married Thadys Short from the Pound River area of Dickenson County and they settled on Big Branch, near Osborne's Gap, and began to raise a family. She was known as a talented cook and homemaker. In spite of only a primary school education, Mrs. Short enrolled in nursing school at Holston Valley Community Hospital in Kingsport, Tenn., when her husband Thadys became too sick to continue work in the coal mines. She graduated at the top of her class and took a job at Park Avenue Hospital in Norton, Va., while her husband attended barber college. They moved with their children to Wise in 1960, where Mr. Short opened the first state licensed barbershop in Wise. In spite of a multitude of health problems and cardiac by-pass surgery, she continued to work as a nurse until she was physically unable. Her earlier homemaker skills paid off when she was hired to be a home extension technician for the VPI Agricultural and Homemaker Services. For the next several years, she taught a multitude of woman throughout Southwestern Virginia to knit, cook, quilt and crochet, along with dozens of other artistic and craft skills. As in all things, she was a gifted craftsperson whose quilts, knitting and crafts won dozens of blue ribbons at the KY/VA Fair over the years. When her poor health and another cardiac by-pass surgery forced her to retire from the Home Extension Office, she did not retire quietly but began to write her autobiography, "I Remember", a warm, memoir of her early life filled with humor, pathos and honesty about the lives of her family. It is the remarkable story of poor working class Appalachian people whose honesty and integrity triumph in spite of the hardest trials and it was this set of values that she instilled into her children. She was a gifted teacher, a singer, a storyteller and a believer in social justice. "Don't you ever act like you're better than anybody else, but don't you ever let someone else make you believe that they are better than you!" Her parents, Richard Dutton and Hattie Wallace Dutton Rose; her sister, Francis Mullins; and brothers, Charles Thomas, Floyd, Tony Lee, and Floyd Dutton preceded Mrs. Short in death. She is survived by her loving husband and darling companion of 71 years, Thadys E. Short of Wise; her children, Richard and Rhonda Short of Harpers Ferry, W.Va., Ronald and Joan Boyd Short of Big Stone Gap, Va., Karen Short Pruitt and Mickey Pruitt of Hansonville, Va., and Colleen Short of Charlottesville, Va.; a sister, Christine Beam of Abingdon, Va.; a brother, Benny Rose of Marion, Ohio; three grandchildren, Carrie Goss, Shayne Pruitt, and Jeffrey Short; eight great-grandchildren; several great-great-grandchildren; several nieces, nephews and a host of other relatives and friends. Visitation for Mrs. Mabel Dutton Short will take place from noon until 2:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 28, 2009, at the Sturgill Funeral Home in Wise, with entombment at 3 p.m. at the Powell Valley Memorial Gardens Mausoleum in Big Stone Gap, Va., with Rev. Raymond Moore of Christ Episcopal Church officiating. Sturgill Funeral Home, 1621 Norton Road, SW, Wise, VA 24293, is in charge of arrangements.