Alice King

Canton - Alice Josephine Worley King, 93, died peacefully June 12 wrapped in a handmade quilt and surrounded by family and friends in the living room of her home in the Beaverdam Township of Haywood County where she was born April 3, 1929.

She was the last surviving child of the late Henry and Lottie Worley. She was preceded in death by siblings Albert, Amos, Alvin, Annette Sizemore and Alma Lawing. She is also survived by Margaret Worley King, her aunt and author of “A Farmer's Daughter Remembers ...” which recounts the joys and hardships of mountain farm life in the last century, an experience they both shared. Their Scottish, Welsh and German ancestors began farming in coastal and piedmont North Carolina in the early 1700s, then migrated westward to Buncombe and Haywood Counties and into the mountains of North Georgia.

Educated in Haywood County schools and Blanton Business College, she was retired from the US Postal Service. Except for a few years in Asheville, she lived her life on Beaverdam where she was active in the Beaverdam and Long Branch Baptist churches. She married the late Mortimer N. King, also born in Haywood, in 1947. An excellent seamstress, as a young mother she made dresses and coats for her daughters. She canned the produce her husband Morty grew in his gardens. She and Morty, a guitarist and vocalist, sang together in church. Notably ambitious, she loved to learn, was an avid newspaper reader and a charter subscriber to National Geographic magazine.

She is survived by son David King of Candler and daughters Carolyn LeComte of Marietta, GA; twins Marilyn Gearheart of Candler and Marlene King of Canton. She was beloved “Nanny” to grandchildren James Furness of Marietta, GA; Andrea Dudley of Charlotte, Aaron and Mark Wood of Canton, and Shawn Gearheart of Lexington, SC. Their favorite memory is that Nanny and PawPaw took the four of them on an unforgettable train trip across Canada. She also was devoted to her eight great-grandchildren: Jakob and Kelyn Furness of Marietta, GA; Noah Dudley of Charlotte; McKayla, Savannah and Averi Wood of Canton; Easton and Rubi Wood, also of Canton.  She also has scores of more distant relatives in WNC and North Georgia.

A funeral service will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 18, 2022 in the Canton Chapel of Wells Funeral Home with the Reverend Gene Worley officiating.  Burial will follow beside her husband and among generations of her kin in the cemetery of Beaverdam Baptist Church where they all await reunification.  The family will receive friends from 11:30 a.m. until 12:45 p.m. prior to the service at the funeral home.

The care of Mrs. King has been entrusted to Wells Funeral Homes of Canton and an online memorial register is available at “Obituaries” at www.wellsfuneralhome.com