Nancy Caroline Scott Oxford

Nancy Caroline Scott Oxford passed away at Givens Highland Farms Health Center in Black Mountain on May 5, 2021. Her death followed a period of declining health and the ravaging effects of Alzheimer’s. She was 89 years-old.

The family wishes to express our deep appreciation to the caregivers at Highland Farms, whose kindness and attentive care was compassionate and even heroic. 

Nancy was born the youngest of nine children to James “Jim” Alexander and Clara Dysart Scott of Glen Alpine. Jim was a Captain who oversaw a prison chain gang. He was also a farmer. Clara was a noted seamstress and homemaker. Clara died when Nancy was just nine years-old. Nancy remained a resident of Burke County until 2017 when she moved to Black Mountain.

Nancy was a 1950 graduate of Glen Alpine High School where she played basketball and softball. She also studied for one year at King’s Business School in Charlotte.

Following her marriage to Johnny Oxford in 1952, Nancy became a homemaker. She excelled at country cooking and baking, flower and vegetable gardening, canning and freezing countless harvests, creative embroidery, crocheting and painting, birdwatching, and could spin a story of family humor and local lore with the best of ‘em.

She joined Grace Episcopal Church in 1959. She served on the Altar Guild, the Episcopal Church Women on both parish and Diocesan Boards, and was a Sunday School teacher for some time. In later years she sang in the choir at St. Mary’s and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church.

Proud to be a seventh generation Appalachian, Nancy pursued interests in genealogy for almost 50 years. Among her research she verified 20 bloodlines of her ancestors who were Patriots during the American Revolution. They fought, and several died, in such backwoods forays as King’s Mountain, Ramsour’s Mill and Cane Creek. This research led her to join the Daughters of the American Revolution where she served in leadership roles at the local Quaker Meadows Chapter, one term as State Regent, and on numerous national committees.

“Ma” reveled in time with her grandchildren Caroline and Will. They baked, played, told stories and learned to make ‘just right coffee’ at an early age.

In addition to her parents and her husband Johnny, who died in 2001, she was preceded in death by her siblings: Marie, Yates, Dysart, Marguerite (Fleming), Catherine (Hairfield), John, Helen (Smith), and Clara (Coffey).

She is survived by her sons: John III and wife Shelia of Morganton; and, Scott and wife Julia of Black Mountain; grandchildren: Caroline of Winston-Salem, and Will and wife Heidi of New Haven, CT; Mickie White (mother of Caroline and Will) and husband Gerald of Morganton, and over a dozen nieces and nephews.

Nancy’s Celebration of Life will be held at St. Mary’s and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 140 St. Mary’s Church Road, Morganton on Friday, May 28 at 10:30 a.m. The family will greet friends in Harrison Parish Hall beginning at 9:45. The Rev. Kris Kramer will officiate.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to St. Mary’s and St. Stephen’s Church; Burke United Christian Ministries, 305-B W. Union Street, Morganton, NC 28655; or, to a charity of your choice. But the best way to remember our ‘Ma’ would be to share a kind word or gesture toward another human being, or some part of God’s Creation in our own corner of the vineyard, because as she often said: “Kindness Matters.”

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