The 15th annual Relay for Life Friday evening will be dedicated in memory of Violet Fuson, a long time supporter of the American Cancer Society, who passed away in May.
“She was a charter member of our DeKalb Unit for the American Cancer Society,” said Iva Del Randolph of Relay for Life. ” I believe she started in 1985. I joined a year later and she was such a mentor to me and to others. Violet did so many different jobs in our unit over the years. She will be greatly missed. We just want to honor her for the many years that she had served our county so well,” she said.
Born and raised here, Ms. Fuson went to pharmacy school and later became Director of Pharmacy at St. Thomas Hospital. She served there for thirty years until her retirement and then relocated to DeKalb County.
Randolph, a second cousin to Ms. Fuson, said Violet recently celebrated her 91st birthday and kept active up until the end of her life. “She had just celebrated her 91st birthday in April. She passed away in May,” said Randolph. “Anything we would ask her to do (over the years) or anything she saw needed to be done, she was always willing to help out. She did the memorials. She sent out cards to people who would give memorials in memory of someone when they passed away. She would pick those up at the funeral home and send cards to the family. She helped with Love Lights Tree. She helped with the door to door (fundraising campaign) as so many other people in our community did at that time. She was real active (over the years) and right on up until the last month of her life,” she said.
“Violet didn’t have any children,” said Randolph. “She never married. But she had seven nephews and one niece. They’re scattered all over the United States. They were very dedicated to her and would come and check on her frequently. Her niece came and stayed with her the last three months of her life to take care of her,” she said.
Eva Willoughby, another active volunteer, said she and Ms. Fuson joined the local ACS unit the same year. “Ms Violet was a very special person to me,” said Willoughby. She and I went on the board about the same time in 1985. At that time we had very few people volunteering for the cancer drive. We did a door to door campaign. Our biggest year was a $10,000 door to door donation. We thought $10,000 was a lot of money but then the next year we went with Relay for Life and found out that Relay was wonderful. That was the best thing we did here in our county. She worked with us almost up until her death,” she said.
Randolph recalled her last visit with Ms. Fuson. “I had visited with her about two weeks before she died. We had a really good visit. I stayed with her for a while so her niece could go and run some errands. Violet remembered one of the last ACS meetings we attended out of the county. After we started Relay for Life, we didn’t have a lot of committee meetings to attend out of the county. There were mid-state meetings, but that was more on the state level, but the last meeting we went to was around Morrison and when we were coming back that night, we could see a lot of falling stars. They were just shooting everywhere. There was just a rain shower of those that night. She recalled that. Violet asked do you remember, we could hardly drive?. She remembered how that at one point, we just pulled over and watched those stars. Her mind was very good right up until the end. We had a wonderful visit that day. She was just always a pleasure to be around,” said Randolph.
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