By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-21 21:56:00 | Updated at 2025-01-24 08:30:59
2 days ago
CV NEWS FEED // Nola and Robert Ramsuer Jr., a couple from Swannanoa, North Carolina, who lost their lives during Tropical Storm Helene, were posthumously awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award during a Jan. 19 candlelight service.
The Ramsuers were among the victims of Helene’s devastating floods. They were both 70 and had been married for 46 years, Citizen Times reported.
The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County awarded the couple for their dedication to community service. The ceremony was held at Trinity Episcopal Church, where attendees gathered to celebrate the Annual MLK Jr. Commemorative Candlelight Service.
Fletcher Mayor Preston Blakely, who served as the keynote speaker at the event, remarked on the importance of selfless service toward others.
“These trying times have shown us that those who serve others belong at the right hand of God,” he said.
The couple’s daughter, Shalana Jordan, shared a story during the service about her parents’ kindness, recalling a time when they offered help to a woman in need during a cold night decades earlier. Nola Ramsuer gave the woman her own coat, offered her a cup of coffee, food, and a ride to a shelter. Decades later, Robert again met the woman, who later relayed that experience to the couple’s daughter after their deaths.
At the service Jordan said, “Those kind of stories are what I’ve heard that’s been really enduring and touching.”
