Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.--Matthew 11:25-30
"When CeeCee Lyles was born on Thanksgiving 1967, she had two mothers: her birth mother, Shirley Adderly, who was 17, and her adopted mother, Shirley's older sister, Carrie Ross, who was 28.
"We raised her together," says Ross. "She was the most wonderful thing two people could have."
They call CeeCee the "center of our fun." They say when she grew up, she always got the family together - had them over for dinner, arranged family card games, picnics and dinners out.
She'd show up at their homes unexpectedly with a fresh pan of lasagna and a salad, then call the rest of the family to join them. She'd drive all day to surprise her brother Tony Ross in Nashville, just to hang out with him for a night."
"CeeCee grew up in Fort Pierce and raised her sons on her own until she married Lorne in May 2000 and later moved to Fort Myers. Emulating her mother and aunts, she never took welfare, instead working two or three jobs while volunteering at Restoration House, a Christian women's shelter that two of her aunts founded in Fort Pierce.
CeeCee was a role model, showing women they could make their own way without leeching off the system," said her aunt, Mareya Schneider. "In the last few years, she really dedicated herself to the Lord and she would use Scripture to explain that if you don't work, you don't eat."
She was a cop for six years in Fort Pierce, Florida. Fellow police officer Wendy Burstein said she loved the rush, the adrenaline. "Fort Pierce is a pretty tough place. We were always getting in fights, having guns pulled on us." She and her husband, Lorne met when she was a patrol officer and he was a dispatcher. She encouraged him to follow his dream and become a policeman and when he did get a job in Fort Meyers, she took that opportunity to pursue her dream job-- becoming a flight attendant. CeeCee was a tough woman but completely caring, unselfish, kind and down to earth. Her husband said she possessed the kind of beauty that was "so precisely achieved as to appear casual and low-maintenance." She wouldn't even go to the grocery without fixing her hair, putting on lipstick and checking her nails. Lorne, her husband loved her feet--- the way they were shaped and pedicured. To him, her feet were perfect.
"Just hearing my wife saying she loved us through all that chaos on that plane is just embedded in my heart forever," said Lorne Lyles, her husband and a Ft. Myers police office. "That's my baby. She's my heart, she's my soul, she is my everything. That's my memory."
CeeCee Ross Lyles
1967 - 2001
This tribute marks the 11th one I have completed. My commitment has always been to write about each one of the souls from United Flight 93.... If I complete one per year-- I will finish this by the year 2042.... I will be 77 years old. I just wanted to provide a little perspective on how many and how much we lost that day.
2013: I remember CeeCee Ross Lyles
2012: I remember Louis J. Nacke II
2011: I remember Jeremy Glick.
2012: I remember Louis J. Nacke II
2011: I remember Jeremy Glick.
2011: I remember Mark Bingham.
2010: I remember Don and Jean Peterson.
2009: I remember Hilda Marcin.
2008: I remember Toshiya Kuge.
2007: I remember Tom Burnett.
2007: I remember Deora Bodley.
2006: I remember Marion Britton.
2010: I remember Don and Jean Peterson.
2009: I remember Hilda Marcin.
2008: I remember Toshiya Kuge.
2007: I remember Tom Burnett.
2007: I remember Deora Bodley.
2006: I remember Marion Britton.
Sources:
United Flight 93 & the Passengers & Crew Who Fought Back: Among the Heroes by Jere Longman
YouTube
Legacy
Post-Gazette
Tampa Bay Times
BET
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