- Heather High
July 9, 1937 - February 10, 2021
Formerly of Aptos, California
Born on July 9, 1937 in Oklahoma City, Heather Nelle Holshouser was the youngest of four siblings born to Jesse and Nelle Holshouser. When she was still young, her parents divorced and left her in the care of her devoted Aunt Alma and Uncle Lester, both school teachers in rural Paul's Valley, Oklahoma. She carried their spirit of sharing knowledge with the people around her until the end.
As a teen, she was reunited with her mother and they lived in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco before it was cool. While attending college in Oakland, she met and married her sweetheart from nearby San Jose State University, Bob High (deceased), and soon had four children, Rob, Heidi, Daphne and Kevin, a bubbly clan of independent go-getters. She loved being a mother and immersed herself in providing a safe, fun, chaotic, but loving environment wherever her husband's career landed them, which included Germany and England, as well as California and North Carolina. In 1980, a year after the family moved to North Carolina, she was the National New Neighbor of the Year, recognized for her relentless efforts to make families new to Charlotte feel at home.
She adored her daughter-in-law and sons-in-law and cherished her role as MeMaw to her six grandchildren. Her specialty was bathing infants, but she delighted in sharing her wisdom, passions, and sense of humor with them as they got older. She was incredibly proud and in awe of each of them.
Heather never stopped living life on her own terms with a sass and energy that made her blaze a trail of laughter, amazement, and exasperation in her wake right to the very end. Her charming personality and adventurous spirit led her to uproot and transplant regularly and successfully, leading her eventually to Texas to live near two of her children when her health started failing. Along the way she was a museum docent in Charlotte, a Realtor in North Carolina, Lake Tahoe, and South Carolina, a Master Gardener in Gold Beach, Oregon, a Friend of the Library and a member of Lambda Nu sorority in Kingsland, Texas, and honorary neighborhood MeMaw in Austin, Texas.
In that eventful last decade she also discovered two half-sisters. They shared a father she barely knew, and she opened herself fully to the gift of a new family. Family reunions were some of her favorite events, and it made her happy they could join the clan at the last one.
Although her marriage ended after 35 years, it was another 25 years before she found the treasure of autumn love with Glenn. They bonded watching sunsets from their connected balconies while she drank white wine and, he, a smooth whiskey. They lit each other up, shared a contagious friendliness that was admired and appreciated in their community, and were like-minded souls who believed in the social justice movement that erupted during his final summer. Sadly, he passed less than two years after their first sunset, leaving her with a sadness she never recovered from. She passed peacefully in her sleep on February 10, 2021, less than two years later.
She leaves behind two half-sisters and their husbands: Emily and Randy Twilling and Leah and Morgan Hall; four children and their spouses: Rob and Cindy High (NC), Heidi and Tim Bishop (SC), Daphne and Kurt Hoffacker (TX), and Kevin High (CA); six grandchildren (Jamie and Jordan High, Ashlyn and William Bishop, Henry Hoffacker and Percival McDaniel), a baker's dozen nieces and nephews and their children, and a lifetime of friends, young and old, near and far, whose lives have been touched by her contagious smile, generous spirit, and raucous sense of humor.
|
1937 - 2021 (83 years)