Betty Faye Fender Grady

Betty Faye Fender Grady, 88, of Morganton passed away peacefully on Wednesday, May 13, 2020.  She was the oldest daughter of the late Lattie Tilman “L.T.” Fender and Eva Branch Fender.  Betty was a member of First Church of God in Drexel.  She enjoyed music, singing, and writing children’s books, poetry, and articles for the News Herald.

Betty graduated from Western Piedmont Community College with a degree in nursing and worked at Valdese, Grace, and Broughton Hospitals.  She opened a child development center on Burkemont Avenue which she closed in 1988 while battling breast cancer.  She volunteered for the Breast Cancer Association and counseled many breast cancer patients.

Betty is survived by a daughter, Shelia Grady Carlisle; sisters, Gail Morris, Charlene Ramsey, Wanda Fulbright, and Phyllis Dale; and son-in-law who helped care for her, John Tipton Oxford, III.

In addition to her parents, Betty was preceded in death by her husband (married 1947), Thomas Arnold “T.A.” Grady; son, Thomas A. Grady, Jr.; and brother, Bud Fender.

Due to the ongoing health crisis, no services are scheduled at this time.

Memorial contributions may be made to Rusty’s Legacy, 139 Lytle Mountain Road, Marion, NC 28752 (https://www.rustyslegacy.org/).

Sossoman Funeral Home and Crematory Center is assisting the family with the arrangements.

The family would like to express their appreciation to the wonderful caregivers at Burke Hospice and to Brenda Fredell, her home care giver from Catawba Valley Medical Services, for her dedicated, compassionate care of Betty in her final year at home.

"If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."

Author: Kahlil Gibran