Virginia Gross Stebbins

VIRGINIA CARTER GROSS STEBBINS
June 26, 1926 - May 4, 2020


Martha Virginia Carter was born in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the daughter of Charles Clifton Carter and the former Gladys Bell Askew. She graduated from Atlanta Girls High School and attended the University of Georgia. In 1968 she graduated from Georgia State University. During World War II she worked for a short time at the Atlanta Ordinance Depot, at the Chase National Bank in New York City, and taught kindergarten at New Windsor, New York.

In 1945 she married Donald Edwin Gross in the Cadet Chapel at West Point. As an Army wife, she lived in many different places, including Japan, Okinawa and Germany. While on Okinawa she taught "Basic Essential Education Requirements" to soldiers who wished to remain in the Army after World War II and Korea. After her husband retired from the Army, she taught High School in Atlanta. She authored "Memories of The Way It Was". The book is the love story of Don and Virginia while enduring the long separations caused by World War II, the occupation of post-war Japan and the Korean War. Their story is one of determination, dedication and devotion, both to duty as well as each other.

She was a member of many Methodist Churches as she moved about. She taught an adult Sunday School class at the United Methodist Church in College Park, Georgia. Later, she attended the Episcopal Church of our Savior in Rock Hill, South Carolina. She volunteered for the Red Cross and the USO at the Atlanta airport. She especially enjoyed Bridge, walking and group activities because of the interesting people she met at those activities.

She was a proud member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Her grandfather, Charles Richard Gellico Carter, her great grandfather Rufus Newdigate Askew and 2nd great grandfather Andrew Jackson Daniel proudly served The Confederacy.

She is pre-deceased by her father in 1970, her mother in 1985 and her husband Colonel Don Gross in 1998. In 2000 she married Colonel Albert Kellogg Stebbins, III in the Cadet Chapel at West Point and moved to Tega Cay, South Carolina. Colonel Buz Stebbins pre-deceased Virginia in 2019. Virginia will be laid to rest at the the United States Military Academy at West Point with her husband Don and near her husband Buz and his wife Nancy.

She is survived by her three children; Donald E. Gross, Jr. and his wife Paula of Dawsonville, Georgia; Charles A. Gross of Tega Cay, South Carolina; and Karen G. Hodges and her husband Kenny of Fairburn, Georgia. She is also survived by her step-children; Stephen A. Stebbins and his wife Nancy of Houston, Texas; Gregory K. Stebbins and his wife Jennifer of Marina del Rey, California; Martha E. Stebbins and her husband Robert of Helena, Montana. Virginia is survived by her seven grand-children and twelve great grand-children.

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