Family mourns loss of two sisters in accident
When Shantel Salisbury and Melissa Landman used to tell their family “I love you,” the precocious sisters would often say “olive juice” instead, stealing a line from a favorite family movie, “The Other Sister.” Now that the sister’s family has come to the realization that they will never hear the endearing words from the “inseparable” women again, the simple but unique parting words “olive juice” have come to mean a little bit more.
“It was their special way of saying goodbye,” Norma McCourt said Thursday, two days after her nieces Salisbury and Landman were killed in an automobile accident in Cumberland Township.
“Those two girls thought the world of their family and Melissa’s two children were her life. They were like my daughters. We were so shocked by this.”
The fatal accident occurred Tuesday morning when their pickup truck smashed into an oversized load being hauled by a tractor-trailer on Route 21.
Salisbury, 18, of Point Marion and Landman, 25, of Uniontown were pronounced dead at 8:12 a.m. by Greene County Deputy Coroner Mary Lewis.
According to McCourt, the girls had gotten up early Tuesday to drive Salisbury’s boyfriend to work because Salisbury wanted to have the pickup truck for the day.
After they dropped him off, the accident occurred.
Cumberland Township police said Salisbury was driving a Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck at 7:44 a.m. when she rear-ended another vehicle, operated by Kim Carter, 46, of Waynesburg, that had slowed down.
The impact caused Salisbury to swerve into the oncoming lane and collide with the trailer heading west on Route 21, killing her and Landman, who was a passenger.
The trailer was transporting a preformed concrete block for a bridge construction project in Ohio.
McCourt said the women lost their father six years ago to a brain tumor and have lived together ever since.
“They were as close as two sisters could be. They were best friends and inseparable. They were partners-in-crime and could be ornery once in a while but they loved their family and each other,” McCourt said.
She said just a week before the accident, Landman had written several poems including one about her sister Shantel.
McCourt said Landman often wrote poetry, a hobby of the young mother of two, and said one of her last inspirations was her younger sister.
“She put her heart into those words,” McCourt said, choking back tears. “We have talked about reading it at the funeral but it was so private. We are putting it in the casket.”
Now McCourt and the rest of the Landman and Salisbury family are simply trying to cope with the reality of the loss.
“It was so tragic,” McCourt said. “They were good girls. They had talent. They were loved. They were beautiful. You just don’t expect to bury your children.”
The Richard R. Herod Funeral Home in Point Marion is handling funeral arrangements.