Frances Dolores Fisher

Frances Dolores Ramirez Fisher was born on September 29, 1925, the eldest of ten children to parents from Mexico who had met and married in the American Midwest. She was raised during the Great Depression, but always told her own children that her family never struggled. Her Daddy - as she always called him - worked hard at jobs with the railroad and in the towns where they lived: Las Animas, Colorado, Lakin, Kansas and Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Her mother, busy raising a growing family and cooking homemade Mexican food and hand-tossed tortillas, encouraged her first-born daughter to explore the world.

In the 1940s, with WWII in full swing, the U.S. government recruited young women to move to Washington, D.C. to work for the War Department. Our Mom made the decision to board a train to Washington. Frances and hundreds of young women from all over the U.S. were housed in a dormitory in Arlington, Virginia. It was there that Mom met her life-long friends, Delores, Norma and Elsie. With these friends, she discovered the city of Washington, D.C., bustling with life during the war years.

Staying in Washington after the war, our Mom forged a career in government work, first at the Pentagon and then on to FDIC, USAID and the Secret Service. She went home to Scottsbluff often, staying for long visits, treating her younger siblings to gifts and stories of life in the nation’s capital. In 1959, she met Staff Sergeant George D. Fisher, USAF. He was leaving the military to start a career in private sector construction with skills he learned in the service. She was intrigued by his interest in Catholicism and helped and encouraged him to become a Roman Catholic. They married later that year and settled in Southern Maryland.

Frances and George bought a home in Hillcrest Heights, MD, across the street from Holy Family Catholic Church. Their five children, Alban George, Laura Juanita, Patricia Marie, Maria Naomi, and Leslie Ann were educated at Holy Family Elementary School. Mrs. Fisher, known for her artistic skill, was often asked to draw or paint for school projects and fundraisers. Oil paintings from her private lessons are the prized possessions of the Fisher children. Mexican music and her love of opera filled the air of the Fisher household, interspersed with the piano lessons she insisted her children receive.

Our Mom loved three things in this world: God, Family and Education. After George Fisher died at age 47, Mom picked up the pieces and kept her family together in Hillcrest Heights to ensure each child receive the very best education she could provide. She saw to it that each of her children attended a Catholic high school and college. No sacrifice was too great to achieve this goal. Her crowning achievement was to see each of her five children earn undergraduate degrees, and four go on to graduate studies, obtaining a doctorate and two law degrees.

Mom’s joyful life came full circle on November 21, 2020, at 95 years old; she played her beloved Scrabble the night before she died. Even as Covid-19 raged throughout the country she continued to thrive due to the loving care provided by Leslie and Maria. She stayed in the home she built her life in, surrounded by her children as her life came to its peaceful conclusion.

She is survived by four brothers and sisters, Nacha, Isabel, Phyllis and Martin; her six grandchildren, Dana, Alex, Ethan, Fisher, Maia and Thomas; and her children Alban, Laura and husband Dave, Patricia and husband John, Maria and husband Charles, and Leslie.