Jimmie Meese Moomaw

Jimmie Meese Moomaw, a noted Southern memoirist, longtime Democratic Party activist, and retired professor of communication theory, died Monday, Oct. 2 in Salisbury, N.C. Born and raised in Mississippi, Jimmie lived and taught throughout the South before settling in Avondale Estates, Ga., where she lived for 40 years before moving to Salisbury in 2014. Her involvement in Georgia politics included service as a consultant, adviser, and speechwriter to governors, legislators, and local office holders. She was also an elected official in her own right, serving several terms as a City Commissioner in Avondale Estates, including as Vice Mayor. Jimmie Lonnie Meese was born Jan. 13, 1937 in Brookhaven, Miss., the only child of Gordon Eli Meese and the former Etta Maye Crawford. Her childhood memories were compellingly recounted in her memoir Southern Fried Child, including stories of living above the firehouse, traipsing around town as a young girl in overalls collecting debts owed to her father’s store, and insightful reflections on a white child’s experience of Jim Crow. Although she left Mississippi as a young adult, small-town Mississippi never entirely left her. Throughout her life, she was a masterful storyteller, a virtuoso Southern cook, a cunning poker player, a prolific gardener, and an avid fisherwoman. In later life, she enjoyed many extended road trips, reading from her memoir at bookstores and libraries throughout the Deep South. She was always ready to pull over for an antique auction, a laden pecan tree, or a promisingly-murky bass pond, and she never left home without fishing poles, a tacklebox, and copies of Southern Fried Child for sale in the trunk of her car. Jimmie was an active and devoted alumna of the Mississippi State College for Women, where she graduated in 1958 with a double major in English and Speech, and eventually served on the Board of the Alumnae Association. She began her university-level teaching career in 1960 at Mississippi State University, where she was instrumental in the establishment of the Communications Department. In forty years of teaching, she taught a broad range of communications courses, eventually specializing in Communication Theory, Persuasion, and Argumentation, retiring from the faculty of Georgia State University in 2000. In addition to her elected service, she served as an Arbiter, appointed by the Georgia Supreme Court, for twenty years. She was also a member of numerous civic and charitable boards and committees, including the Advisory Board of Directors for the Atlanta Olympic Games; Abused Women and Children, Inc.; DeKalb County’s Multi-Use Senior Center; the DeKalb County Human Relations Committee; and Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Board and Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. She also chaired the DeKalb County Board of Health. When she moved to Salisbury, she immediately sought ways to offer her gifts in her new community, becoming a member of the Symphony Guild, the Phoenix Readers, the Salisbury Human Relations Committee, and the Executive Committee of the Democratic Party. Most recently, she was instrumental in organizing the bipartisan group Salisbury Indivisible. Above all her accomplishments in academia, teaching, politics, and even fishing, Jimmie was most proud of her children and grandchildren, to whom her devotion was immeasurable. She is survived by her two daughters, Amy Moomaw Goodnight of Salisbury, and Elizabeth Moomaw Peyton of Charlottesville, Va.; sons-in-law Will Goodnight and Will Peyton; and five grandchildren, Nellie May Pickett Peyton, Crawford Jackson Peyton, James Parish Peyton, Wyatt Edmund Goodnight, and Emmaline Fleming Goodnight. A funeral service is planned for 10 a.m. on Monday, October 9 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Salisbury. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial donations to St. Luke’s or the Glenn A. Kiser Hospice House. Summersett Funeral Home is serving the Moomaw family. Online condolences may be made at www.summersettfuneralhome.com.

Jimmie Meese Moomaw

January 13, 1937 - October 2, 2017