A celebration of the life of Ethel McPeak Thompson Bolt will begin at 1 p.m. Friday at Slate Mountain Presbyterian Church, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 173 near Meadows of Dan.
We’re asking motocyclists to gather at the parking lot in the rear of the Floyd County Courthouse at 10:30 a.m. Friday to escort her remains to Slate Mountain for the service.
Pastor Jeff Dalton of Slate Mountain will preside over the service, guitarist and songwriter Bernie Coveney will play and we will share stories about my mother’s life.
After the service, the family will gather for a private ceremony at Buffalo Mountain Presbyterian Church to scatter part of her ashes at the grave site of her husband and my stepfather, Truman C. Bolt.
In a week or so, I will carry the urn with her remaining ashes on my Harley from Meadows of Dan, her birthplace, to Tampa, Florida, to place at the grave site of her first husband and my father, William D. “Tommy” Thompson, who died in 1948 in an industrial accident.
The trip will retrace the route she took in 1946 when she rode her Harley from Meadows of Dan to Tampa to meet her future in-laws.
Her parents, Walter and Zella McPeak, were among the founding members of the church, which is one of the “rock churches” of Southwestern Virginia started by the Rev. Bob Childress, “The Man Who Moved a Mountain.” Mom was a charter member of the church and later belonged to Buffalo Mountain Presbyterian Church, another of the rock churches. She frequently played piano for all of the rock churches.
Please join us if you can. My mother told me she didn’t want a funeral or a memorial service. She preferred a “celebration of life.”
That’s what it will be.
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2 thoughts on “Join us for a celebration of life”
Doug My deepest sympathy goes out to you I’m so sorry to hear your Mom passes away ,
Sounds like a beautiful way to have her rest in peace taking her ashes to Florida that way.
and taking that ride with you there, beautiful brother.
My prayers are with you, Bob Taylor
I’ll be up in Lexington with daughter Karen tomorrow, but will hold my memories of Ethel in my heart as you celebrate her life. She was a woman I respected because of her straight-forward honesty and delighted (most of the time) in her observations of life around her. She’s earned her wings. Kate Garland .
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