THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 14, 1996 TAG: 9605140275
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Stewart Thomas had just left Miami International Airport after dropping off his daughter, Elizabeth ``Betsy'' Favero, 44, along with her husband and 14-year-old daughter.
Thomas, a former Portsmouth resident, and his other daughter, Dianne Tinsley, were on their way to do some shopping and touring Saturday when they heard the radio report: a ValuJet DC-9 had just crashed in the Everglades.
``They were trying to convince themselves that the plane that crashed wasn't the one that the family was on,'' Elizabeth Tinsley of Virginia Beach, daughter of Dianne Tinsley, said Monday.
But it was.
Elizabeth Tinsley said her grandfather and her mother immediately made arrangements to fly to Atlanta to be with the Faveros' surviving son, 22-year-old David.
The next day, Elizabeth Tinsley left Virginia Beach and flew to Atlanta to join the family members gathering in Duluth, an Atlanta suburb. She did not think about risk, she said, after what she describes as ``the most tragic thing that has happened'' in her life.
``My thought was, I need to be there with my family,'' Tinsley said Monday in a telephone interview from Duluth. She works in marketing for Sentara Health System. Many other relatives and close friends had gathered in Duluth and are planning a Wednesday memorial service in Atlanta, she said.
Stewart Thomas' brother, Reide Thomas, also of Virginia Beach, was unable to go because of a health condition that makes travel difficult. He has been communicating with his brother by phone, he said, and that has been hard.
``You just don't believe it at first, and then you realize it's so,'' he said Monday. ``It kind of leaves you numb.''
Her mother and aunt, Tinsley said, grew up in Portsmouth's West Park View. The family moved to Atlanta in 1960, when their father was transferred there. Stewart Thomas, a retired Sears executive, had worked at Portsmouth, Norfolk and Hampton stores before the transfer. His late wife, Lora Elizabeth Thomas, taught distributive education at Cradock High School in Portsmouth for many years. After retiring, Stewart Thomas moved to Coral Gables, Fla.
Both sisters had flown to Florida last weekend to attend a Friday night party their father was throwing at a country club.
``He just wanted to have a party to celebrate friendships and that kind of thing, and he wanted his two daughters there,'' Tinsley said.
The Faveros had hoped to be able to stay until Sunday, she added, but decided to go home earlier.
Despite living in different parts of the country, the two Thomas sisters and the rest of their family remained close-knit, vacationing every year at Nags Head on North Carolina's Outer Banks and rotating the homes they gathered at each Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Tinsley's aunt was in real estate in Atlanta, and her uncle-in-law, Franco Favero, originally from Italy, was a builder there.
``Their marriage was like a story-book marriage,'' she said. ``My uncle was an officer on a cruise ship, and they met and fell in love.''
The Faveros were a ``wonderful and loving family,'' Tinsley said.
``And I'm going to miss my aunt and uncle and my cousin very much. But we're going to be here for our cousin and do what we need to do.
``He's the main concern right now - taking care of him and getting him through this.''
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT PLANE VALUJET FATALITIES by CNB