
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 3, 1994                   TAG: 9408030060
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

FATE TAKES FATHER, SON WITHIN HOURS OF EACH OTHER

Thomas G. "Chip" Abshire left his job at a Southwest Roanoke building supply store at lunchtime last Wednesday to soak a sore leg. When he didn't return, a co-worker called his house. Getting no answer, she went to check on him.

She found him dead and called the police.

While police were at the home, the telephone rang. It was the Virginia Veterans Care Center, calling to let Abshire know his father, Thomas W. "Tommy" Abshire, had died.

The elder Abshire, 76, had cancer. His son, 46, was a diabetic.

"My father's death was somewhat expected," said Debra Ramsey. "But my brother's, unfortunately, is quite a bit of a shock. I had just talked to him a few days before."

The father and son had lived together in a home on Wasena Avenue for about 13 years. Chip moved in with his father after a divorce, Ramsey said.

Neighbors knew of them and of their concern for their Southwest Roanoke neighborhood and its residents, said Bill Evans, who lived across the street.

"We're all shocked," Evans said. "We are very disturbed by the loss because they were such good neighbors."

The son died a little after 4 p.m.; the father close to 6 p.m. Their funerals on Saturday were an hour apart - the father's at a funeral home chapel, the son's at graveside. Their caskets were sitting end to end at the burial, said Dorothy Jones, a family friend.

"It is sad," Jones said. "But they're together now, we feel like."

by CNB