When he was young, Gaylord Fischer recalls his job was to clean and maintain the home he shared with his mother on Detroit's West Side. And his mother's job in their partnership was to do what she did best, remain the provider and the steady rock. Eunice Heslip lived in the same house for 60 years, and walked to St. Cyprian Episcopal Church to sing in the choir. She worked at the Army Tank Automotive Command in Warren for 41 years, retiring as an inventory management specialist in 1991 at age 82. "I don't think she was ready to retire even then," said former co-worker Joan Bell. "She kept receiving awards for service and performance. Before she retired, the Great Lakes Chapter of Federally Employed Women named her Woman of the Year." "She always took great pride in the fact that she worked for the government and considered herself very fortunate to get a job in 1950," said her son. "It was very hard for a woman then, let alone a black woman, but my father had left us and she simply put her shoulder to the wheel." Mrs. Heslip was born in Georgia and moved to Detroit in 1914. She attended junior college in Chicago and returned to Detroit in 1932 to marry Elmer Fischer. She remarried in 1952 to Leonard Heslip. Both men are deceased. Mrs. Heslip's insistence on her son obtaining a quality education has influenced generations of her descendants, according to her son. "She wouldn't let me stop. She would say that if you don't have an education, you don't have a life. Education always has been the major tenet in our lives," said Gaylord Fischer, a retired aerospace industry astrophysicist. His children also have each earned university degrees, the last graduating just recently. They work as a lawyer, a police captain and an accountant. "Certainly, whatever success I had was in direct response to what my mother did. My children also have benefited from that emphasis." She died in her sleep at Boulevard Temple retirement home in Detroit, where she had lived since 1999. Survivors include her son, Gaylord Fischer; four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.