Mary Josephine Shipley Cross

Josie Cross, beloved wife and life companion of Richard Hunter Cross Jr. and beloved mother of Richard Hunter Cross III passed away quietly at Cedarfield on April 3, 2014. Josie was loved by friends, family and everyone at Cedarfield for her dauntlessly positive outlook on life, her girlish grace and for her wry, but always generous, sense of humor.

Her happiest years were those with Dick and Hunter in the fields of Virginia, running bird dogs, field trialing, riding Tennessee walking horses, hunting upland birds, fly fishing on the many waters of her adopted state and playing bridge, which she continued with great enthusiasm until the end. Josie Shipley was born and grew up in Athens, Tennessee where she was valedictorian of her high school class and attended Tennessee Wesleyan University, then the University of Virginia to study medical technology.

It was at UVA where she met Dick, then a highly decorated fighter pilot and a young wildlife biologist for the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries, an organization he succeeded to lead as its Executive Director. During those halcyon years of their marriage, Josie and Dick were responsible for assembling much of the land now preserved by the state for public hunting and fishing.

Before she met Dick, Josie was married for a brief time to Lt. Thomas Amburgy, also of Athens, her brother’s best friend and a graduate of the US Naval Academy, whose submarine was lost in the Sea of Japan on his first combat mission of the Second World War.

Through her life Josie carried herself with strong resolve and with allegiance for all it meant to be a Lady of the South. Her memory will endure in this regard as a high model for emulation by her family and friends.

Josie was a devoted member of Trinity Methodist Church, among the founders of Cedarfield and a devoted supporter of The Shepard Center.

She is succeeded in her immediate family by her son, Richard Hunter Cross III and his wife Jenny Coleman Cross of Concord, Massachusetts and Gloucester Point, Virginia, by their two daughters Katherine Murdoch Cross Tapply of Concord, Massachusetts and by Hannah Shipley Cross Hanlon of Atlanta, Georgia, and by her first great- grandchild, Eliza Mae Tapply.

A true Lady of the South has passed, who will be missed, but whose memory will linger in the enduring fondness of many.

Donations in her honor can be sent to The Cedarfield Angel Fund, 2300 Cedarfield Parkway, Richmond, Virginia 23223.