Fannie Harris Crumpler

d. April 9, 2012

Fannie Mitchell Harris Crumpler died peacefully in the early morning hours of April 9, 2012, after two weeks of music making with her sons Dixon, Dennis, John and Charles and their families, at her home at Magnolia Glen in Raleigh.A woman of strong faith, conviction, and determination, Fannie Crumpler leaves a legacy of service to God, her family and her community that lives on through the many lives she touched in her 82 years on this earth.At the center of her life was a love of music, encouraged at a young age by her mother who traded turnip greens for a $50 piano and her older brother Phil who paid for her music lessons from the proceeds of his paper route.Taking nothing for granted, Fannie parlayed this show of love and devotion into a passion for music and art that infused everything she did for the rest of her life.
Born on July 6, 1929, in Henderson, NC, she was the fifth child in a close family of six children.She revered her older siblings Livy, Phil, Gracia and John, and had a special relationship with her younger brother George who shared her talents in music and the bond that comes with being close in age in a large family with older siblings.Together they were the life of the neighborhood.A precocious and outgoing child, Fannie excelled in school, pursuing her music training with discipline and focus, and by high school she had distinguished herself in the eyes of her teachers and peers as someone truly special.Voted Most Talented by her class, Fannie had earned it with five years as Drum Majorette in Tom Hearnes nationally renowned high school marching band, alongside the Pit Band, the Glee Club, starring roles in school productions, and an increasingly serious focus on classical piano under the training of the exacting Mrs. Parker.Also voted Best Dancer, she was the Queen of the 1947 Henderson High School Jr.-Sr. Banquet and Dance.
Her high school success earned her a scholarship to study classical piano at a prestigious conservatory, but music took her in another and more fateful direction.Soon after graduation she met the love of her life, Dick Crumpler, a handsome crooner from Sampson County with whom she was to make beautiful and dynamic music for the rest of their days together.To the strains of Cole Porter, Hoagie Carmichael, and George Gershwin, they planned their future and committed their lives to one another, and were married at the First Presbyterian Church of Henderson on March 19, 1949.
Ever industrious and hard working, Fannie was awarded a Full Commercial Diploma from Henderson Business College, which led to a series of jobs as an Executive Secretary, first at Roses Stores, and then at Carolina Bagging Company. Next in her career she was the first employee at Kwik Pik, later named Fast Fare, where she was Office Manager and Secretary to the President and Vice President, assisting the co-founders in opening their first office in a convenience store chain that would grow to 500 stores in five states.Fannie was there every step of the way, serving in various roles leading to her job as Special Projects Manager. With a growing family in tow, she was a working mother before the term became popular.
Her family was all-important to her, and she was as devoted and loving a mother as she was talented in music.Her four boys were her proudest accomplishments: Dixon, born in 1951, followed by Dennis in 1952, John in 1957 and Charles in 1961, born the day after Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut in space.It was to be a wild ride.The challenges of raising four boys in trying times brought out the very best in Fannieher grace, her courage, her constancy, her forgiveness.
Fannie devoted over sixty years to her beloved First Presbyterian Church of Henderson, which she and Dick joined the year they were married in 1949.In the following sixty years she would serve in every capacity conceivable, with the same conviction and commitment she brought to her mu

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Fannie Harris Crumpler

d. April 9, 2012

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