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Someone has said: "behind every great man there is a great mother or wife," and this statement is manifest in the life of Gertie Ross.
Apparently from her parents she was endowed with the spirit to "Do" and "Dare" to build safely, soundly and high, and spirit has been and is now the hub of her life.
She was born in Leavenworth, Kans, June 10, 1879, and two years later her parents moved to Denver, then a trading center and headquarters of the gold-seeking pioneer.
She attended the public school and was an honor graduate of old East Denver High then located at Nineteenth and Stout Streets.
Very early in life she evidenced a desire for music and her parents spared nothing in giving her this education. She finished the Western Conservatory of Music and did post-graduate work in New York. She taught music for a while and for twenty years has been organist and musical director of Shorter A. M. E. Church.
She was the first colored woman to be employed in the Denver U. S. Mint, holding the responsible position of weigher.
On December 7, 1910 she was married to George Ross, whe that year had passed the State Bar examination and hung out his shingle - George Ross, Attorney-at-law. From then until now they have been together and to use her words it has been "one thrill after another."
She was in the organization of the Phyllis Wheatly Branch of the Y. W. C. A. , and has been a member of the Board of Management since 1918. Under her direction the present beautiful home at Twenty-fith and Walton Streets was purchased and paid for. As president of the Woman's State Federation of Clubs she sponsored many unique reforms and activities. Among them was the scholarship for worthy girls attending college. Covering a period of eighteen years the following ladies, now graduates of the leading colleges of the country have been beneficiaries of this fund: Captoria Cwynn, and Thada Mae Green, Howard University, Washington, D. C., Elizabeth North, Wilberforce College, Greeley, Colorado; Winona Carter and Margaret Shelton, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Throughout the years she has helped shape and develop the policies of Shorter A. M. E. Church which has given it a stellar place in things religious in the Rocky Mountain Region. With her Christianity is practical. In the sermon on the mount there is sufficient ground for all peoples to stand on, and to have a broad understanding and fellowship.
Notwithstanding her busy life she has been an inspiring hope and guiding star to her lawyer-husband.
He is a successful lawyer and they are the publishers of the "Denver Star", the oldest colored weekly in these parts. It has heart and soul, the organ of the struggling masses and exponent of the universal brotherhood of man. Their editorials are read and often quoted by the dailies of the city.
Through its columns she preaches her sermons of a new social order: that race hatred can and must be dethroned: that these are the times that are trying the souls of men and only the fit will and can stand.
Having passed the half-century mark, she is still young - young because of her knowledge and contact with young people - to them she is plain Gertie to whom they can go and in confidence discuss their problems. She believes in them and says the present-day restlessness, so called, because we don't know them and their points of view.
