Obituary of Frances Medley

Frances was born to the late Grandville Hairston and Janey Aquilla Gosney in Charlotte, Virginia and raised on a large farm filled with cattle, horses, farm animals, goats, chickens just country living. She was raised on this farm with her 8 older brothers and sisters, her being the youngest. She attended High School in Virginia with aspirations of going to college in Hampton Virginia but with the early passing of her Mom at the age of 5 that left the older boys and sisters to carry quite a load leaving her with little resources when she graduated High School.    The 30’s my Mom grew up in were not the most fun after losing her mom so early at the age of 5 while her older siblings were so much older and the younger 5 spent much of their time helping each other, She remembers stories of racism and several stories we now watch in the movies, she did have a Caucasian mother and African American father.  These years soon passed and at the age of 16 with her father permission our southern belle left Virginia for the city of Philadelphia where she lived with my Aunt Dot her older sister on 15th Street, not familiar with city life it took some adjusting, but she found her ground, through matchmaking her sister soon introduced her to her husband for life Marshall. They wed in February 1953 and out of this union was born Marshall P Medley Jr, (aka Pedro) and his younger sister Pam.    Frances was a go getter and worked but never full time when my brother and I were young. Her first full time position was with Cohen Realty in the 60’s and then Sears & Roebuck during their transition to closing she went to Goldmen Sachs investment for a few years. Wanting more stability and settling career she went to the Philadelphia school district at Roosevelt middle school where she formally retired, and we had a ball at her retirement party. Mom was very vibrant, fun loving and always ready to get out and do something, until our dad passed, she continued to try and maintain good spirits as often as she could. Franny was never alone; she has two granddaughters (Erika Gonzalez) (Mecca Sullivan). Those were some fun times for Franny. She cherished these girls, and nothing was too good for either of them from the time they were born. These three were so close you'd think these girls had no parents; they were a small posse together. The girls will miss her dearly, the girls gave her 3 wonderful grandchildren (Saniyah Gonzalez-Andrews) (James Marshall Sullivan) (Kajeer Andrews) affectionately known as nanny. We always love and cherish you. Happy birthday mom, grandmom.