Former Citizen Times food, lifestyle columnist Carole Currie, dies at 81

Update: A memorial service for Currie will be 3 p.m. Sept. 2, at Weaverville United Methodist Church. Visitation with the family will be on the church lawn immediately afterward.

ASHEVILLE - A former award-winning Citizen Times features columnist and lifestyle editor known for her class, charm and conversational columns has died.

Carole Hart Currie died Aug. 27 at her Weaverville cottage following weeks in home hospice, according to family members. She was 81.

Currie fought a yearslong battle with lung cancer, although family said she had never smoked.

Currie is survived by her husband Walter Lee Currie II; daughter Laura (Currie) Chase and her husband, John, and their two children; son (Walter) Lee Currie III and his two children; and her brother Bill Hart and his wife, Alice Hart.

"Alice and I enjoyed a close relationship with Carole and Walt and from the beginning of their marriage, sharing family gatherings, picnics at Craggy Gardens family reunions and social events," Bill Hart said by email. "We are deeply saddened by Carole's passing but comforted by many warm memories we share."

Born on Nov. 27, 1941, Currie was a multigenerational North Carolina native who was raised on College Street in Weaverville.

She attended North Buncombe High School, then set off to Durham to study journalism at Duke University, graduating in 1963. The collegiate experience led Currie to a long, rewarding career in journalism and to a fruitful 60-year marriage and lasting family legacy.

More: Carole Currie: Taking a closer look at what surrounds us

On a snowy North Carolina day

Walter "Walt" Currie remembers the day he met Carole and the many reasons he fell in love with her.

It was a snowy day in 1960 at Duke University when a friend invited Walt Currie to walk to the girl’s dormitory. There was a young woman he knew there, and she had a roommate, Carole Hart. The four decided to make the most of the wintry weather and went outside to play in the snow. After a rousing snowball fight, the couples went to eat at Annamaria's Pizza House.

Walt Currie said he knew immediately that he wanted to see Carole Hart again.

“She was beautiful and had nice, mountain-rosy cheeks and reddish hair and I thought, 'I would like to date this woman,’” Walt Currie told the Citizen Times Aug. 28.

It wasn’t long after that Walt would propose to Carole on a date, and she accepted.

“I found she had a good sense of humor, she was very intelligent, and she was a very positive person,” he said. “Our backgrounds were so much similar. My mother was a schoolteacher, her mother was a schoolteacher. We were both from small towns ― I was from a small town in South Georgia and she was from Weaverville. I found that she was very family-oriented, as was I. So, there were lots of positives.”

Walt Currie graduated from Duke University in 1962. The couple were engaged for a year while she finished her senior year. Then, on June 22, 1963, they married at Weaverville United Methodist Church.

It was her family’s home church and where she served as the organist for more than a year when she was in high school, he said. She's also said to have excelled in piano and voice.

Laura Chase has heard the story of her parents’ meeting retold many times over the years. Another story she enjoys is what happened when her father met his future mother and father-in-law.

“We always laugh about how when he came to meet my grandparents in Weaverville. My grandmother said, ‘And she makes her own clothes,’” Chase said. “My grandmother was proud of her ― ‘She’s smart and she knows how to do things.’”

Currie in the newsroom

In college, Carole Currie interned for the Durham Sun. She was hired as a staff writer for the Durham Morning Herald and immediately took up the post after graduation.

The newlyweds juggled school and work in their new life together. She worked at the newspaper while Walt Currie taught at a school while attending law school.

“I went back to the University of North Carolina for law school, and, in fact, she put me through law school,” he said.

The Beer Guy: Tony Kiss, the Beer Guy and longtime Citizen Times reporter, editor, dies at age 68

Later, the couple left Durham for the Asheville area where he worked at a law firm, and in 1968 she joined the staff at the Asheville Times, an afternoon newspaper, before it merged with the Asheville Citizen, becoming the Citizen Times.

Carole Currie worked as a features reporter and later a food editor before she retired in 1999.

In the early years, Carole Currie wrote about fashion and often traveled to New York to attend Fashion Week, Chase said. She attended fashion shows in Atlanta and professional journalism conferences, too, Walt Currie said.

Later, she segued into lifestyle and food writing as those interests and industries developed in Western North Carolina.

Walt Currie said his wife loved journalism as it allowed her to learn more about people. He said she was a good interviewer and had a knack for getting sources to share details with her.

Nature Journalist: George Ellison, long-time naturalist, author, Citizen Times columnist, dies at 81

Even after retirement, Carole Currie wasn't ready to put away the pen. She continued writing her features column as a regular contributor.

In the column "A Fond Farewell, But Not Goodbye," published in ACT on Dec. 22, 1999, Carole Currie wrote: "After 36 years in the newspaper business, 31 of them here in Asheville, I'll be taking my pencils and letter opener home to work, starting a small business doing free-lance writing and who knows what other projects. First, I'll work on cleaning cabinets and closets while I still have a burning desire to. That won't last long."

Making an impression at ACT

Currie is remembered as a kind, beautiful person and a calming influence by her former colleagues.

In 1997, former ACT reporter John Boyle joined the features department where he would work with Carole Currie until she retired.

“She was the consummate Southern lady in that she was very classy, unflappable, very charming but she also had a wicked sense of humor,” Boyle said. “It was always a little sly and quiet, but she could just get a dig in like nobody’s business. She was a real delight to work with.”

There was a running joke that Lionel Richie’s “Three Times a Lady” song was written about Carole Currie, he said.

“Carole was the epitome of a Southern lady ― classy, polished and discreet,” Melissa Williams, a former Buncombe County and city reporter, First Amendment and government editor, said in an email. “Meanwhile, John Boyle and I ― who, for a while, sat in a section of the newsroom near her and Tony Kiss ― did our best, almost daily, to try to break Carole's professional armor. I can't think of a single time we succeeded. Her office demeanor could rival the countenance of guards at Buckingham Palace. But she did have a sly, dry sense of humor, which was a treat to behold. She was absolutely lovely. Wise and lovely. And she had a great laugh.”

Carole Currie’s personality and character seamlessly translated to her writing, whether in a heartfelt tribute about a community member or a poignant piece on a topical issue, like in the early 1980s when she reported on dilapidated schools in Buncombe County.

“Carole was just an excellent features writer, and she had a writing style that when you read her stories you felt more like you were part of a conversation than you were reading a story. Very easy writing style,” said former ACT executive editor, Larry Pope. “I always appreciated her writing style and how cleverly she could put together a story and let the subject of the story shine through.”

However, he recalls her approach to writing restaurant reviews, which were always positive. Carole Currie opted not to write about a business if she didn’t enjoy the experience, he said.

Former Features Editor Lydia Carrington remembered Curries as an excellent reporter, writer and editor, and a kind and caring person.

“She was quick to share sources and contacts, the valuable perspective of a native with deep roots in the community, and the review copy cookbooks she received by the hundreds when she was Food Editor," Carrington wrote by text. "I especially appreciated her wickedly dry sense of humor. She was a mentor in my early years and a friend I looked forward to seeing every day at work. She mourned with me the death of my mother, celebrated my marriage and the birth of my daughter, and shared her wonderful family with us. Carole was lovely.”

Currie was also a mentor and admired by many in the newsroom and throughout the community.

“Carole was one of the grand dames of the newsroom when I arrived at the Asheville Citizen as a cub cops reporter. She was in the so-called ladies department in charge of recipes and social news, but she knew everyone in town,” Dale Neal, a former features reporter, said in an email.

“Later on, we would work together in the revamped features department with Tony Kiss and John Boyle, cracking wise in between putting out a daily paper. She was a true newswoman, turning out beautiful features about everyday triumphs and woes in her columns.”

Her influence spanned past her days as a full-time ACT staff member.

“Carole retired just before I started at the Citizen Times in 2000, but she went out of her way to reach out to me, to offer advice and encouragement to a young reporter,” said ACT Executive Editor Karen Chávez. “She was a kind and generous person with deep empathy and a calming presence. We at the Citizen Times are terribly saddened by Carole’s death and offer our deepest condolences to her many family members and loved ones.”

Among her many community contributions, Bill Hart said his sister was "a member of the board of the local Girl Scouts Council, served with Walt as a board member for SART (Southern Appalachian Repertory Theater) and was active in a Weaverville Book Club that Carole's mother helped found many decades earlier."

Among the stars

Carole Currie’s career life continued post-ACT retirement.

Chase worked as the personal assistant to actress Andie MacDowell (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Groundhog Day”) and L'Oréal spokesperson when she lived in Asheville.

“Our daughter was going to a different job and Andie said, ‘Laura, I would like you to find somebody just like you,’” Walt Currie said.

Chase recommended her mother.

For nearly three years, Carole Currie worked for MacDowell until she moved to the West Coast. They remained friends over the years, even vacationing at MacDowell’s ranch home in Montana a couple of times – though the actress wasn’t there.

“She also traveled to New York one or two times with Andie for interviews or things she was doing at that time,” Walt Currie said.

Family and food connections

Food served to bring Currie’s family together whether at home or dining out.

Currie taught her family to cook, including her grandchildren, and food served to bring them together. Chase said they’ve always been “a mountain food family” who gardened, canned and ate apples in the winter and green beans in the summer.

Chase recalls their family going to many interesting restaurants, many of which became subjects in Currie’s columns.

“Back in the day, there was one pizza place ― it was Pizza Hut when I was a kid in the 1970s,” Chase said. “Obviously, the food scene has seen a dramatic change in those years. She got to be a part of that, and we got to be a part of that with her.”

Chase said her mother didn’t have a favorite dish and was a diverse cook and baker. Mountain comfort foods in her repertoire include Vidalia onion relish and pear relish served on greens with sweet potatoes in the winter.

“She was always on the lookout for new recipes,” Chase said.

Walt Currie said his wife was a good cook ― and there’s an award to prove it.

Carole Currie once won first place in the National Chicken Cooking Contest for a dish called “Saucy Chicken and Wine,” he said. She also judged many culinary contests across the South, including at the North Carolina State Fair.

Carole Currie was a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization that promotes Southern food and traditions, Walt said. And part of the slow food movement with Slow Food USA through which she interviewed famed chefs Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock, Chase said.

Currie left her family files stocked with recipes she collected over the decades, both passed along and clipped from publications, like Cook’s Illustrated and Bon Appetit magazines.

“Up until a couple of weeks ago, she was still looking at recipes and inventing and reinventing,” Chase said.

Carole Currie, a treasure to all

Chase described Currie as a “fun mother” with a great sense of humor who was beautiful inside and out. She said her mother was sharp and could pinpoint that one little thing that would make a person laugh.

“When I think about what my mom gave to me, I would say continued friendship, support and advice. I feel that she carried that to the grandchildren, as well,” Chase said.

Carole Currie was a “very involved family person” and her grandchildren always knew their “Baba” was there for them whether through text or email or sitting at the table where they could ask her questions, Chase said.

“She was a sweet and wonderful North Carolina native, and she passed along a lot of those traditions and memories to us. She’s sort of a rarity, these days,” Chase said. “It’s an honor to be the mother of children who were able to come up with that.”

After six decades, Walter Currie treasures the time he’s spent with his wife from that fateful snowy day at Duke University to the final days at their Weaverville cottage.

“It was a delightful journey and we both enjoyed quite a bit,” Walter Currie said. “We loved raising our children and our four grandchildren. It was a good trip.”

Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow her on Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Former Asheville Citizen Times lifestyle columnist Carole Currie dies