Skip to content

Herta’s spirit fills the ball park again

Family and friends came together to remember Herta Ross at the Kathy Pedersen Park.
87071nakusp160811-NAL-Herta_2
Little Scott gets carried through the bases by his dad and grandma Andrea

On Saturday, Aug. 6, longtime resident of Nakusp Herta Ross’ family marked 13 years since her passing with a few familyactivities throughout the day, including spreading her ashes in some of her favourite parts of Nakusp.

The public celebration in Herta’s memory started with a friendly family slo-pitch baseball game at the Kathy Pedersen Park andcontinued at the Nakusp Municipal Park with a water fight in the afternoon, and ended with a public dance at the Legion Hall.

While the baseball game was originally intended as a family vs. locals affair, very few locals actually attended, Nonetheless, thegame went on unencumbered, as Herta’s multi-generational brood more than filled the ball park, dogs included, both innumbers and in spirit. The home team, Herta’s Gang was made up of six of her offspring and the stand-ins for the two of heroffspring that could not make it. The other team was Big Gunz, which someone referred to as Herta’s Spawn, meaning theoffspring of her offspring.

Herta, a regular at the ball park, used to have two slo-pitch teams Herta’s High Hopes and Herta’s Honeys, which oftenincluded her daughters.

The game ended with Big Gunz winning over Herta’s Gang with a final score of 22-17.

Before living in Nakusp, Herta and her family owned a convenience store with a small post office in Mission, BC, which allowedher to start her training with Canada Post. That enabled her to make the transition to Nakusp in 1980 with her youngest twooffspring and she quickly came to love the village, which she called “the gem of the Kootenays.” Her family lives mostly in theMission/Abbotsford area but visited Nakusp “every Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Holidays,” according to her first sonRichard, who added, “She started in a little post office in the corner of our store and made it all the way to postmistress.” Herdaughter Cindy-Lue Williams-Fedato, who coordinated this celebratory weekend, mentioned her mother had at one point beenon village council, was the postmistress, had two ball teams, and bartendered at the Leland all at the same time."