By Tonia Black-Gold
Catawba College News ServiceThe couple’s five children have established the Rose and Eddie Post Endowed Scholarship at Catawba College.
Salisbury was Rose Zimmerman Post’s hometown and was the place where she met her husband, Eddie. It’s where the two of them settled and raised their children, David, Phyllis, Sam, Jon and Susie.
Eddie Post died in March 2006.
It was the place where Rose’s father, Sam Zimmerman, an immigrant from Podiatz, Poland (a village later obliterated by the Nazis), had settled his family in 1939.
Sam Zimmerman’s dream had been to give up his peddler’s cart for a permanent storefront. He realized that dream with his first store in Morganton, where was born, and then later, with stores in Valdese and Marion, Va.
When he moved to Salisbury, it was to open his fourth store at 110 N. Main St., a perfect location because of the family living space above it.
“We wanted to do something to honor our parents in Salisbury,” David Post said, “and my mom’s entire life has been devoted to education.  She covered education for the Salisbury Post for 20 years and I think she recognizes how critically important Catawba is to Salisbury and what great things Catawba has done in many ways.”
Rose and Eddie moved to Greensboro after their marriage on July 8, 1947. Eddie sold insurance for a year while Rose finished college at Women’s College, now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 
They moved back to New York after she graduated, and in 1949, son David was born. The couple’s residency in New York lasted only two years before the fledgling family returned to Salisbury in 1950, where Eddie joined Rose’s father at Zimmerman’s Department Store. 
After he graduated from the University of North Carolilna at Chapel Hill and completed a tour of duty in the Army, Rose’s brother, Leon Zimmerman, also returned home, where he and Eddie ran the store as partners for 35 years.
The couple’s second child, Phyllis, was born in 1950, followed by Sam in 1956, Jon in 1958 and Susie in 1962. In 1951, Rose accepted a job at the Salisbury Post and her career there spanned 56 years, until her retirement in 2007. 
Eddie Post, meanwhile, enjoyed a successful career in retail, helping to expand Zimmerman’s flagship business in downtown Salisbury to six other locations. 
He worked in the business until it closed in 1988. Thereafter, he worked with son Jon in Jon’s computer business, Procomp, and later worked with sons Jon and David in MedExpress Pharmacy, a business David acquired and moved to Salisbury.
Despite busy careers, both Rose and Eddie Post seemed to focus on their family. “My parents were completely involved and engaged in every aspect of our lives, whether it was our participation in extracurricular activities or our school work,” David recalled. “We were their lives.  The gift they gave us was teaching us how to raise a family by the way they raised their family.”
Of his parents, Jon said, “She was a woman of so many words, and he was a man of so few; they fit together because of that. Dad had a way of cutting to the chase, and he was hilarious. He was also an incredible writer. When we were in college, the best thing that could happen to us was to receive a letter from Dad.  There was never any money in it, but always something to make us laugh and pick us up.”
The Post family gathers at least three times a year, but always for Thanksgiving, for New Year’s Day and for a week together at the beach. 
On New Year’s, they continue a tradition begun 36 years ago, the presentation of the Dodo of the Year Award, and the sharing of their New Year’s Revelations where family members self-reveal something about themselves unknown to others. They have Rose and Eddie Post to thank for these traditions, for their closeness, and for each other.
The Post’ eldest son, David, divides his time between Washington, D.C. and Salisbury. He is a lawyer and a C.P.A. in North Carolina and a professor in the McDonnough School of Business at Georgetown University. 
Second child Phyllis makes her home in Salisbury and is a professor of counseling at UNC Charlotte. Son Sam spent 24 years in the Salisbury-Rowan School System, is a playwright, and owns “Coffee News.” 
Son Jon of Salisbury, a 1981 alumnus of Catawba College, is a partner in the business he owns with brother David, MedExpress. 
Last-born daughter Susie lives in Durham and is a nationally recognized photographer with her work published in National Geographic and Life. She now teaches as an adjunct professor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke.
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Friends of Rose and the late Eddie Post may contribute to the scholarship fund established in their honor at Catawba. Contact the Catawba College Development Office at 704-637-4394 for details.
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Tonia Black-Gold is Catawba College’s communications officer. Contact her at 704-637-4373.