Ella L. Forster

Miss Ella Louise Forster, 99, died Wednesday, December 19, 2012, at Winston County Nursing Home in Louisville, MS. Funeral services will be held Saturday, December 22nd at 1:00 P.M. at Porter Funeral Home, with Rev. Tom Clark officiating. Interment will be in Memorial Park Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 12:00 P.M. until service time Saturday at the funeral home. Ella Forster was born March 20, 1913, in Baltimore, MD, and came to Louisville in 1928 when her father moved his family here from Laurel to work in the local GM&O railroad shop. Ella was in the 10th grade, and after graduating from Louisville High School, she went to work for the GM&O railroad in Louisville as secretary to the Southern District Superintendent. When the Louisville location was closed, she moved back to Laurel and finished the last 7 years of her 30 year career with the railroad. Upon her retirement in 1968, she returned to Louisville and has made it her home ever since. Ella was a legend within railroad circles for her ability to recall 16 digit boxcar numbers from memory. It is said that no one was better able to predict the arrival of a particular boxcar and shipment than Miss Ella, and it was all done in her head, no computers. She was a member of St. John’s Lutheran Church. She was preceded in death by her parents, Margaretha Dorothea Timm and Oskar Michael Wilhelm Föerster; and her brothers and sisters, Elsa A.M. Rowsey, William O.H. Forster, Alma Juliana Hardin, Franz (Frank) H. Forster, and Ernst (Boob) Forster. She is survived by her nieces and nephews, James M. Rowsey, Jr., William Hull Forster, Michael Hull Forster, Susan Hull Forster, Juliana Hardin Dowell, Kurt Michael Forster, and Karen Lynn Forster Chapman. Pallbearers will be Jackson Forster, Phillip Chapman, Michael Rowsey, Patrick Rowsey, Luke O’Quinn, and Will Forster. Memorials may be made to St. John's Lutheran Church, Louisville, MS, 39339. To sign the guestbook, please go to www.porterfuneralhome.net.