Mary Margaret Rand

Mary Margaret Brown Rand, of Morganton, NC, formerly of Wilson, died peacefully on Saturday, October 6, 2018 at Grace Ridge Retirement Community in Morganton, North Carolina.

Mary Margaret was born in Durham, North Carolina to Fremont native Mary Dickinson Hooks Brown, and her husband, a Wilson native, Walter Earl Brown, a medical school student at Duke.  Dr. Brown lost his life in the Pacific during the Guadalcanal campaign.  Mary never remarried and, with the help of family and so many wonderful friends from Fremont and Wilson, raised our mother and Uncle Walter, Jr. in Wilson.  Mary Margaret was a proud graduate of Charles L. Coon High School (1956) and the University of North Carolina (1960).

As a small child, Mary Margaret was often picked on by a persistent little boy.  Fed up with his antics, she hit him over the head with a stick and thought she had gotten rid of him once and for all.  He was smitten, but undeterred.  Many years later our father finally won over the love of his life.  Tom and Mary Margaret married on June 11, 1960. 

Mary Margaret became a schoolteacher, military wife, den mother, artist, volunteer, friend and benefactor to the Latin American Studies department at UNC, and most of all, the sweet, gentle, calming force in our family.  In 1971, after our father completed his obligatory service in the Air Force at Wright Patterson Air Force Base just outside of Dayton, Ohio, Tom and Mary Margaret moved to their home in Wilson, where they lived until last December.

Mary Margaret loved her hometown, the beach, and Chapel Hill.  She loved to travel, even with four unruly children in tow, to all sorts of places, foreign and domestic, by air, land, and sea.  And she loved her trips with Tom, especially to France, and their beloved St. Barths, where they met new friends who became old, dear friends who came to visit them in Wilson. 

She is survived by her husband, Dr. Tom Slade Rand; their daughter, Georgia Rand Collett, husband, William Burton Collett, and their children, Edgar Rand Collett, Mary Margaret Collett, and Mathias Alexander Collett, all of Morganton; son, William Kenan Rand, wife, Christine (Chrissy) Bolin Rand of Ponte Vedra, Florida, and their children, Victoria Faith Rand Holland and husband, Nathan of Corpus Christi, Texas, Christopher Caleb Rand, Bethany Grace Rand, and William Kenan Rand, Jr., all of Jacksonville, Florida; son, Walter Brown Rand, wife, Patricia Gregory Rand, and their daughter Lucille Spencer Rand, all of Raleigh; son, Tom Slade Rand, Jr. and his children, Slade Ross Rand and Emma Adelaide Rand, all of Wilson; and one great granddaughter, Elani May Holland.  Mary Margaret is also survived by her brother, Walter Earl Brown, Jr., and her brothers and sisters in law, Dr. Cecil (Skip) Holmes Rand, Jr., wife, Edith, of Greenville, NC, Kenan Slade Rand, wife, Genevieve, of Wilson, and William Harrison Rand, wife, Natalie, of Sedona, Az., along with her nieces, nephews, and cousins.

A memorial service will be held in Morganton, NC at 2:00 p.m., Sunday, October 14, 2018 in the chapel at Grace Ridge Retirement Community.

There will be a memorial service in Wilson for Mary Margaret at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church at 11:00 on Saturday, October 20, 2018.  Her family will receive friends at her home in Wilson from 2:00 to 5:00 that afternoon.

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