Emma McCosh was recognized as Atlanta’s First Lady of Travel by local pros in the travel business. By the time she retired at 90, she was its grande dame.
Sam Massell, president of the Buckhead Coalition and a former travel agent, called Mrs. McCosh a true leader in the industry’s several professional associations. “Dozens of travel agents learned their trade at her feet,” he said.
“Aunt Em presided over our [Vacations International] travel agency during a golden age, when people dressed up to fly,” said her niece, Lyn Mashburn of Cumming who with her sister, Nancy Moore of Atlanta, worked with Mrs. McCosh.
“We specialized in individually arranged trips. We thought of it as travel a la carte,” Mrs. Mashburn said.
“It was a great time to be in the travel industry,” she continued. “Then airline deregulation came along around the late ‘70s, and instead of the orderly operation we once had, it just went crazy, and then the Internet made matters worse for our business.”
Even so, Mrs. McCosh maintained her travel agency, keeping it going until 2002. “There still are people who want personalized service in planning their travels and also want someone to back them up when something goes wrong in the midst of a trip,” said Mrs. Moore.
Mrs. McCosh, 97, of Atlanta died Monday at Unihealth Post-Acute Care of Brookhaven of complications following pneumonia. Her memorial is at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25, at Peachtree Christian Church. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Peachtree Christian Hospice, 3430 Duluth Park Lane, Duluth Ga. 30096.
Mrs. McCosh broke into the travel business selling tickets for a fledgling Delta Airlines in the early 1940s. Starting in 1946, she worked for the Thomas Cook Travel Agency, until the 1960s when she formed her own agency, Vacations International.
In that capacity, she accompanied numerous tour groups on adventures overseas in Western Europe, China and Japan. Her own favorite destinations were England, Scotland and Paris, Mrs. Moore said.
Mrs. McCosh’s last mission as a tour guide came in her 80s when she led a group from Peachtree Christian Church on a fall-foliage swing through New England.
When she wasn’t at the office or on the road, she gardened. “She could push a stick into the ground, and it would begin to sprout. She could turn impatiens, an annual, into a perennial. Her backyard was dominated by azaleas, cultivated and wild, and in the springtime they exploded with color,” Mrs. Mashburn said.
Mrs. McCosh was a very giving person, said a great-niece, Brenda Eller of Sharpsburg. “You might stop by her house for a visit, and she wouldn’t let you get away without giving you some plant cuttings, some fresh parsley or rosemary, and one of the things she picked up at a two-for-one sale.”
She valued her ability to get around by herself. Without telling anyone she bought a new four-door sedan when she was 90 and drove it for two years. Only then did she decide it was time to stop driving, said her brother, Joe Surles of Sharpsburg.
A couple of years later, she suffered a fall and required treatment at a nursing facility. There she broke her leg showing a nurse how to cha-cha, Mrs. Moore said.
Survivors include a stepson, John B. McCosh Jr. of Jacksonville, Fla.
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