'Our friendship will be always': Friends remember the Tire Lady at her memorial service
Mar. 11—MASONTOWN — Madison Wolfe kept fluttering her hands Saturday afternoon in the social hall at the Masontown Volunteer Fire Department.
That was because people kept making the request.
"Oh, my God, " one woman said. "Is that the Tire Lady ? Let me see 'em again."
"Yep, " the 19-year-old said, happy to oblige.
"I'm wearing them out of respect."
Attached to her 10 digits were artificial nails of the press-on variety, reusable on purpose.
Fashion and marketing, at the same time.
Most of them carried a cartoon image of Christine Croucher in her "Tire Lady " persona — bib overalls, red bandanna, sheriff's badge and all.
Croucher, 69, who parlayed a truckload of used tires in her two successful "Rainbow Tire " garages in Star City and Masontown, died March 1 after being found unresponsive in her home.
She was cremated. Her memorial was Saturday in the Preston County mountain town.
A brand is born Driving there, on winding W.Va. 7, with snow in the air and temperatures just below freezing, it was hard not to think of a Tire Lady tip on how to motor in wintry conditions.
She was social media, before there was social media.
Croucher was doing videos on vehicular safety behind the wheel 40 years ago when that format was largely unused for such purposes.
Among local general assignment reporters, she was the go-to source, when it came to writing the seasonal story about keeping your car safely on the road around here in January and February, when the ice is occasionally known to make your morning commute before you do.
The business writers from the trades always sought her for the guidepost stories about marketing, advertising and steering your corporation on a prosperous road — no matter the economic weather.
"She was definitely a good businesswoman, " said Wolfe, who had gone to work for Croucher just five months before her passing.
"And she definitely made an impression."
Ain't that the truth, said Bob Bender, her old classmate from Waynesburg Central High, just 20 minutes up the road on Interstate 79 in Pennsylvania.
Croucher, a Pennsylvania native, started out there in the other Masontown, where she ran her own garage just out of high school.
The enterprise was a couple of places down from the Rainbow Tavern, owned and operated by her grandmother.
Bender worked on his car at her garage, any time an open bay was available.
He came to her memorial service done out in Tire Lady regalia, wearing the same brand of KEY bib overalls favored by she.
The old classmate had some serious things to say about his friend — when he wasn't laughing like a loon at her antics on the wall TV, that is.
Croucher was holding court as a "crazy kazoo lady, " for a long-ago benefit evening.
Somebody got it all on video, showing that an expert on tire rotation also knew how to roll with comedy. The audience's laughter on the video was so loud it was distorted at times.
"Good lord, " Bender said, with a chortle.
"In high school, she was funny and friendly. Always helping people. If you're writing a story, here's one word to describe her: 'Amazing.' "
Like roses miss the dew Her longtime friend Michael Beto, who presided over the afternoon in the fire hall, got laughs also, as he described the slapstick-deftness of the Tire Lady.
There was the memorable Halloween when Croucher, done out like an old lady — "with bosoms down to her knees " — reduced a guy in the other lane to guffaws with over-the-top flirting as she and Beto drove to a costume party.
It was all good fun and maybe only a little naughty — like the wading pool end of PG-13 naughty, Beto said — even if the sudden sight of a police car in the rearview did shut off his laughter like a patch over a leaky tire.
His first thought: "We're going to jail."
"I would have loved to have been the fly on that proverbial wall when she met St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, " he said. "I would have loved to have heard that conversation."
The serious thing that always held air, Beto said, was their friendship.
She was never judgmental, he said.
If you needed help, and she was able, she was there. If you needed to talk, she was a generous listener.
All those gloriously goofy stories, and all those sincerely serious stories, are getting him through, he said, as he works through the wrenching suddenness of her passing.
"I will carry those stories and our friendship will be always."
The endearing rasp of the late John Prine, one of the Tire Lady's favorite singers, made eyes well in the hall.
"I Remember Everything, " was one of the last songs Prine wrote and recorded before his death from COVID in 2020:
"... I remember everything Things I can't forget Swimming pools of butterflies That slipped right through the net I remember every night Your ocean eyes of blue How I miss you in the morning light Like roses miss the dew ..."
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