Character Study

Songs of the Season

With faith of his father, Dixie Chapman made the journey from the course to the choir

By Jenna Biter

Dixie Chapman walks me through the open floor plan of his home to the sitting area: a plush-looking sofa across from twin armchairs. Paintings of a sun-drenched farm scene and a portrait of a bearded man I feel I know hang on the walls. The room itself is a warm conversation, if a room can be such a thing. I pick the plush-looking sofa, and he takes a chair opposite. I wonder if it’s his favorite and look him over: silver hair combed to the side, dark-rimmed glasses, a gray turtleneck, quarter-zip pullover, stone khaki pants, polka dot socks peeking out beneath pant legs, golf sneakers.

He wears the ensemble comfortably, like a faithful uniform. And, in a way, it is his uniform. He’s a golfer and has been his entire life. With famed amateur golfer Dick Chapman as his father, he almost has to be. But Dick Chapman is a story for another day.

Richard Davol Chapman Jr., better known as Dixie, is a golf lover like his dad. He plays four times a week, weather permitting, and resides with his wife, Pidgie, on the grounds of the Country Club of North Carolina in an elegant, easy home tucked away under trees on the bend of a road with a garden oasis for a backyard. “We’re very happy,” Chapman says. “It’s a great house as far as flow is concerned. You go here and there, and it’s not complicated at all.” Uncomplicated — that’s how he seems to live his life, rooted in his marriage and balanced by golf, his career as an investment manager and his expression of faith: hymn writing. “I’ve got a nice little triangle there,” he says.

Chapman was born into music almost as much as he was born into golf. “I’ve always liked to sing. We went to The Village Chapel when I was growing up. My father actually became the choirmaster, and he had a very good voice. I kind of grew up with music.”

He pauses. “I tried to learn the piano but that never worked; my fingers are too short.” Holding up his hands in a piano spread, he laughs. “They never flew . . . no, no, no.” Chapman shakes his head and smiles. “But we had an organ in the house, a small organ; my father played. And we had a piano; my mother played show tunes.”

Chapman studied English in college and has written poems throughout his life. A couple of decades ago, Johnny Bradburn, the music director of the church he was attending, read his poetry and liked what he read. He asked Chapman if he thought he could write a hymn.

“Well, I don’t know. I never tried to do that,” Chapman responded. “Lo and behold, the first one I wrote, the choir sang. And I was out of town.”

He and the music director began collaborating on hymns. “He had the unique ability to write,” says Chapman. “I would sing to him, and we would go over lines and over lines, and he’d get the melody, and write it down. Put it into musical notation. So then, when I sang a solo, he would play the music.

“I’ve written, I don’t know, 140 or so hymns since then,” he says. Adding with a laugh, “I’m not on the same level as Charles Wesley, who wrote 6,000.” While Chapman admires Wesley, an 18th century leader of the Methodist church, he doesn’t aspire to be as prolific. “I don’t want to write one every day.”

I ask if he finds writing hymns relaxing. He hesitates and says, “Well, it takes attention, and it’s exciting. I enjoy it thoroughly.” Then he tacks on, “It’s relaxing when I finish it.”

Sensing that he doesn’t want to turn his worship into a chore, recuperation between hymns seems necessary, even if it’s only a pause to enjoy a completed song. “Some take me longer to write than others, and I’m always revising. It’s never going to be right the first time you do it. You have to keep revising and improving the metrics, improving the words that you want to use,” he says. “It’s an interesting process. I’m just waiting to hear the next one.”

Chapman usually writes when he feels a nudge. “A line will stick with me. Sometimes it just comes out of the blue, and I hear something in my head, and the spirit guides me.” Sometimes Pidgie is the nudge. She often prints out familiar songs for her husband to mark up and transform. “I like to take a melody from a well-known song and incorporate it into a religious song,” Chapman says.

He’s got a hymn for Lent. It’s called “Vigilant.” He pauses, clears his throat and begins to sing. “Vi-gil-ant. Be viiiii-gilant,” he trills up and then down, holding onto the words. “The day of the Lord will soon begin,” he sings and then shifts back into speech to explain the accompaniment for this particular hymn. “It was all brass of course. And that song went so well with that.” Then he picks up where he left off. “Vig-il-ant. Bah, bah, bah, bah . . . ” He imitates blaring brass and trumpeting trumpets. “Ta, ta, ta, ta . . . you know?” He’s a musician lost in the song.

We run through a list of seasonal hymns. Chapman hums low, testing out melodies before belting into song. “No,” he mutters and adjusts his tone. He taps his foot for time, polka dot socks coming in and out of view. He sings through four or five songs. “Do you still have someone to write music for you now? Are they still performed?” I ask.

“No, I wish I did, but I don’t. It’s frustrating.” Chapman frowns. After leaving the church with the talented music director for a new spiritual home, he hasn’t had many opportunities to share his songs publicly. One day, though, he hopes to combine 10 or 20 of his favorites into a booklet and publish them.

“Vi-gil-ant. Be viiiii-gilant.”  PS

Jenna Biter is a fashion designer, entrepreneur and military wife in the Sandhills. She can be reached at jenna.biter@gmail.com.

Character Study

Underground Artist

James Alford plies his classic trade

By Will Harris   •   Photography by Tim Sayer

In the basement of the Cabin Branch Tack Shop, down a set of creaky wooden steps, the musky smell of leather mixes with the lingering odor of sweet cigar smoke where James Alford practices his leatherworking craft. A radio plays rhythm and blues as he repairs horse tack and saddlery using tools and methods that haven’t changed in generations.

Speaking through a Swisher Sweet cigar that has long since gone out, Alford recalls the relationship that led to his 50-plus-year career keeping the indispensible gear of an equestrian stronghold in good working order. “I got lucky because a gentleman I knew in town was a taxi driver, and I used to do a little work for him,” he says. “You know, the kind of guy who knows a lot of people. And he liked what I did so he looked out for me for a job. That’s how I got in and met Mr. Schmelzer.”

E.J. Schmelzer hired 14-year-old James as an apprentice at the Schmelzer family leather shop serving the Pinehurst Harness Track. “Just starting out it was a part-time job after school and on weekends. I got away from the tobacco field. You remember those days.” He could have gone to the Stanley Furniture plant, where his father worked for 38 years, but “that wasn’t my thing,” he says. “I got to the tack shop, and that was it. I thought: ‘Oh, this is where I need to be.’”

After 12 years at the Schmelzers’, it was time to move on. Alford began working at the tack shop in Southern Pines in 1980 when the business was part-owned by Sam Bozick. “I knew they needed help and I came straight over and started working. No changes or nothing. I worked for Sam for over 25 years.”

Bozick, known for his affability and generosity, would sometimes fix tack for people even when they didn’t have the money to pay him. He knew they would settle up when they could. “A handshake meant a lot back then. It was just like signing a contract, when you buy a property or a car,” Alford says. “He would let them have it and gave them time to pay for it and wouldn’t push them about it. And kept going with a smile.”

Alford and Bozick spent time traveling up and down the East Coast. “Sam would go all over the country and pick up tack work or buy leather. I used to ride with him a lot of the time, and we’d turn in somewhere way back in the woods, old big farms. People he didn’t know. He’d pull into the farm and get to talking to them. And that’s the way he built business.”

Bozick passed away in 2010, but Alford continues the legacy with the comfortable confidence of an expert who has seen it all. Surrounded by mounds of unfinished boots and harnesses stacked on his workbench, he exudes an infectious calm. “Take your time, have patience, and it will all fall right into place. I say all the time, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have taken this job here.’ And then I’ll sit there and think to myself, ‘What I’m going to do?’ and I can picture in my mind how I want it to look when I get done.”

The day is punctuated by regular visits from his customers, announced by the banging of the half-door that still bears Bozick’s name at the top of the stairs and the thump of riding boots descending to the workshop. He particularly enjoys the challenge of an unorthodox job. “I like everything about it. Sometimes I’ll get here and I’ll groan to myself: ‘Oh, this bunch of junk.’ And then I look at it and think, ‘I know how I can fix this.’ But you’ve got to do it right, because they’re gonna use it.”

Some customers pick up finished bags, boots and bridles. Others just need a quick fix that Alford does while they wait and watch. He can put his hands on a customer’s repaired item within seconds, even if it looks more like a pile of random stuff to the casual visitor.

On a busy afternoon, the door slams and a rider walks down the stairs, boots turned sideways to avoid snagging her spurs on the carpeted steps. She’s picking up a saddle Alford has altered to keep it from digging into her horse’s back. “You know when the saddles are old and the horses grow, their back changes and everything. A lot of times you can correct the problem. Stuff it with padding and so forth. But that’s the way it goes.”

She asks how much she owes, but Alford sends her off without paying. He expects the saddle may be back for further tweaks until it is perfect for the horse and rider.

Later in the day another rider comes in. The hackamore bridle her horse is fond of using has a problem — when she pulls the reins, it slips in front of the horse’s eyes. She has attached two pieces of bailing twine as makeshift straps to keep the bridle centered on the horse’s face, what Alford calls a “backwoods” fix.

She plans to compete with the horse at the end of the month, and while the bailing twine works, it may detract from the pair’s performance. Relishing the opportunity to make something from scratch, Alford intends to copy the customer’s design in leather, adding buckles so the straps can be adjusted. “I’m looking forward to this, because I’ve got to make it,” he says.

Alford’s favorite project is rebuilding saddles. An older gentleman from Laurinburg brought in a Western-style saddle from his childhood that he wanted Alford to rebuild just so he could display it in his home. He said the saddle would never be used again, but Alford knew better.

“I have done some saddles like that; they say they’re going to put them up as a showpiece, and they will end up riding them,” he says. “So, I fix them the same, just in case. I put everything just like they were roping steers and on the trail riding for months at a time.

“You do it right, because you never know. Who knows, someday his granddaughter might grab that saddle. Now, they can just throw it on a horse and take off and ride,” he says, with a smile.  PS

Will Harris is serving an internship at PineStraw to complete his business journalism undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He works locally as a carpenter, enjoys playing tennis, sailing and spending time with his dog Bear.

Character Study

A Chin Scratcher

Stuck in the era of the presidential close shave

By Scott Sheffield

Whither hast thou gone, presidential whiskers? No American president has sported facial hair of any kind since Howard Taft left office in 1913, except for the mustache and goatee cultivated for a short time by Harry Truman after the 1948 election. Before Taft, no American president had gone without it since James Buchanan ceded the office to Abraham Lincoln in 1861, except Abe’s successor, Andrew Johnson, and William McKinley. During that era, the diversity of presidential facial growth ran the gamut of possibilities. Long sideburns, mustaches, mustaches with muttonchops, full beards with mustaches and without.

John Quincy Adams (1825–1829) was the first president to opt for a hairier facial appearance. This new look consisted of something between very long sideburns and muttonchops. He may have been emulating his father’s [John Adams (1789–1803)] sideburns, which were shorter but just as bushy as his. Martin Van Buren (1837–1841) was next to show some facial flair, sporting long bushy sideburns, followed by Zachary Taylor (1849–1850), who wore shorter, less ostentatious but still bushy sideburns as well.

In 1861, the first beard appeared on the face of a president. The beard, sans mustache, appeared on the face of Abraham Lincoln. In October of the previous year, Lincoln had received a letter from a young girl advising him that he should grow some whiskers in order to enhance his appearance, as well as his chances of winning the election the following month. Although Lincoln expressed concern in his reply to the little girl that people might consider doing so “a silly affectation,” he started growing a beard shortly thereafter. On his inaugural trip to Washington, D.C., the following February, his train stopped in Westville, New York, the hometown of the little girl, Grace Bedell. He called her from the crowd and proudly showed her his full-grown beard, saying, “Gracie, look at my whiskers. I’ve been growing them for you.”

In 1865, Andrew Johnson, who became President after Lincoln’s assassination, was the last clean-shaven president until William McKinley took office in 1897.

During those intervening years, the choices varied considerably. Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877) wore a closely cropped, but full, beard and mustache. My favorite, by the way. (Maybe because it looks like mine.) Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881) likewise wore a full beard and mustache but most definitely not a closely cropped affair like Grant’s. His beard cascaded well over his celluloid collar, just as his mustache flowed over his mouth, almost concealing it completely.

James A. Garfield (1881–1881) was only in office six months when he became the second president to be assassinated in less than 20 years. While in office, though, he perpetuated the style of his predecessor with a free-flowing mane of his own, beard and mustache alike. At least you could make out his mouth.

Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885) distinguished himself as the only president to adorn his countenance with the combination of muttonchops and mustache. Unfortunately, the hair on his face grew sparsely so he really wasn’t able to rock the style statement.

Grover Cleveland, the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms (1885–1889 and 1893–1897), wore only a full mustache. It was a bushy one, one that seemed to eschew trimming, but not on the scale of those belonging to Hayes and Garfield.

Then there was Benjamin Harrison’s (1893-1897) beard. Similar to Grant’s in shape and length and well groomed, it also earns style points for color. Although he was only 56 years of age when he took office, his beard was totally white. I still like Grant’s the best. (Did I mention that his looked like mine?) As a result of yet another assassination, Teddy Roosevelt became president in 1901. William McKinley (1897-1901) had opted against any type of facial hair at all, but his successor wore a full mustache similar in size and shape to Cleveland’s. In today’s parlance, both Teddy’s and Grover’s mustaches would be likened to those of bull walruses, and come to think of it, probably were in their day as well.

The last president to adorn himself with facial hair was William Howard Taft (1909-1913). His choice was a full-blown handlebar mustache.

So why have the presidents’ faces gone hairless for over a hundred years? Around the turn of the 20th century, public health officials determined that tuberculosis, a scourge of the era, was an infectious rather than a hereditary disease. In this period of uncertainty about the disease, the theory arose that men’s beards could be repositories of tuberculosis germs. That pronouncement eventually led to the adoption of the clean-shaven look as the more healthful and therefore more desirable for presidential candidates, as well as men in general. Even after it was determined that beards posed no greater risk of contracting or transmitting tuberculosis than shaven skin, the damage was done. Facial hair didn’t return to men’s faces until the 1960s and never again (or at least not yet) to the faces of presidents.

In the presidential races of 1944 and 1948, Thomas Dewey, the last candidate for the office to wear facial hair, was defeated on both occasions. It was said at the time that the public’s disapproval of his mustache may have contributed to his losses.

So, is that it? Has presidential facial hair been relegated to the dustbin of history? I don’t think so. If Julian Edelman, the MVP of Super Bowl LIII, can wear a beard and have it shaved live on TV by Ellen DeGeneres, can the most powerful chief executive in the world be far behind?

Maybe, if it’s a woman.  PS

Scott Sheffield moved to the Sandhills from Northern Virginia in 2004. He feels like a native but understands he can never be one.

Character Study

Catalog of Memories

No room at the inn for the Wish Book

By Tom Allen

Say it ain’t so. Not at the most wonderful time of the year.

Recently, Sears announced they were closing 142 stores before the end of this year. At its height, America’s largest retailer boasted over 4,000 stores. Decades of lagging sales and plummeting revenues reduced the number to less than 1,000. Fingers point at everything from out of touch CEOs to blasé brands. I beg to differ. The reason? They messed with the Wish Book.

In 1993, Sears stopped publishing beloved big-book catalogs and reduced the size of the Christmas Wish Book, a holiday tradition since 1933. My generation circled Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Chatty Cathys and Electric Football games with vibrating, metal fields. We showed our parents pictures of Milton Bradley games like Barrel of Monkeys, Mousetrap and Twister. Remember Operation and “Cavity Sam,” with his red light bulb nose? Sam’s “Adam’s Apple” was easy to remove. Likewise his “Wrenched Ankle.” Going for the “Bread Basket,” worth $1,000 in play money, was the real test of hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. Touch that metal with those tweezers — the buzzer sounded and Sam’s nose lit up. Doggone it! But we loved it. “Batteries Not Included” meant our stockings held an 8-pack of double-A Evereadys. Years later, we’d slip the same 8-pack, along with bubble gum and a pair of socks, into our kid’s stockings, just like our parents did. Thanks to the Wish Book, boys might pull out Hot Wheels; girls, Easy Bake Oven accessories.

Eventually, we ditched the Wish Book. Thought we’d outgrown it. Clothes, no longer frowned on, became acceptable under the tree. Who needed a Wish Book, we thought, when slick mail order offerings hollered at us from October until early December. As young adults we circled item numbers from Lands’ End catalogs, underlining sizes and colors to make sure whoever filled out the order form or called toll-free would get it right. We had to be at least as preppy as our best friends. We dog-eared pages from L.L. Bean’s collection of duck boots and flannel shirts, ’cause if you didn’t go for poplin and prep, try rugged and woodsy. For some, toll-free ordering from folksy towns like Dodgeville, Wisconsin, or Rockport, Maine, added to the mystique of the purchase. Am I really talking to someone who lives in Dodgeville? How cool was that?

Then along came the internet. Who needs toll-free numbers and mail order forms when you can shop online? Quick and convenient. Yes, I saved that credit card number, but they always ask for the security code. “Honey, will you hand me my wallet?” Need more choices? Hello Amazon Prime. For 120 bucks a year, get everything from toilet paper to toffee in two business days. But with convenience came overwhelming choices. Clothes shopping? Scroll through page after page of stonewashed denim or polo shirts and you still can’t find what you want. Narrow that search. Surely a middle-aged man, with a receding hairline and slight belly bulge, can find an alternative to skinny jeans. All I want is a short-sleeved navy polo — no pockets, hemmed sleeves or, Lord forbid, a monogram. Just a few colors, please. I’m fine not receiving a sweater on Christmas morning in “light beetroot red.”

In 1886, Richard Sears, a railroad worker, started selling watches through fliers and mail order catalogs. The business morphed into Sears Roebuck, selling everything from shoes to furniture to musical instruments. You could even buy a house from Sears. Exclusive brands like Kenmore, Craftsman and Diehard proliferated in American kitchens, tool sheds and cars. The Sears Tower, built in 1973 in Chicago, was once the tallest building in the world as well as the retailer’s headquarters.

By the 1980s low-price competitors like Walmart, Kmart and Target were opening big box stores. Sears tried to snag the dot-com market, acquired Lands’ End to beef up their apparel, and merged with Kmart. Nevertheless, decline continued. Sell-offs increased. The company became a shadow of itself during the ’70s and ’80s.

Last year, after listening to customers recount Christmas Wish Book memories, Sears brought the catalog back. But the print version, as well as online and mobile editions, failed to attract baby boomers who remember waiting for the iconic Christmas catalog to arrive by mail, months before Santa slid down the chimney.

Everything has its season. Sadly, perhaps Sears has had theirs. Still, memories of finding everything on my Wish Book list under the tree are priceless. Or, at least they beat the necktie with three Wise Men riding camels. I know. It’s the thought that counts.

Good luck, Sears. At Christmas, miracles still happen.  PS

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

Long Journey Home

Life lessons of the “baby home” in Tanzania

By Samara Wright

When I arrived in the small village of Mwanza in the summer of 2017, I walked slowly through the tiny market, my eyes taking in each small shop made out of dirt and clay. I watched girls my own age baking “chapati” and “mandazi,” similar to our tortillas and doughnuts. Some sold fruits and vegetables, including the largest avocados and mangos I’d ever seen. The village, and the people who would become my friends, quickly felt like home to me.

For six of my eight weeks there, I worked in a baby home, an orphanage, called Forever Angels. Neshibu, one of the mamas, or care workers, invited me to her house for lunch, the first meal of her day. We walked the twisted path between dirt walls that she walked every day. Her home, one of the nicest in the village, was one room, with a tiny bed. It was beautifully cluttered with things she had collected, clippings from local magazines, pink tinsel saved from baby home parties, a large wooden cross. I was welcomed by her two young children, who immediately introduced me to their neighbor friends. After Neshibu cooked rice and beans on the tiny stove she shared with her neighbors, we sat around her bed and ate together, showed each other our favorite photos, laughed and sang songs.

On Tuesdays of every week as many as 150 families came to the baby home, some traveling as much as five hours to get there. We would teach them about nutrition and what to do if their child had a fever.  For most of them baby formula represented an entire week’s wages and was impossible to afford. We gave them formula and peanut butter and, usually, that was enough to keep them from abandoning their children, to keep their children from being the ones we cradled in the baby home each day. I played photographer and took family photos which we printed out and gave to each family as a gift. A picture they could hold in their hands meant more to them than I would have ever imagined.

But mostly I remember the babies. I held them each and every day, giving them baths and hearing their giggles. And I remember the music. The baby home had very few CDs but one of them was the soundtrack of the musical Mamma Mia. I laughed until I cried watching 30 or 40 African toddlers gyrating wildly to the song “Dancing Queen.” They sang “Happy Birthday” at the top of their lungs to every single insect we found because they loved singing one of the few songs they knew in English. I read stories to them, both in English and Swahili, and they begged for more. I walked down to Lake Victoria with a baby strapped to my back. And when it was time to eat, I watched them sit around the dinner table together, like real family.

Every night when I put them to bed, straight out of the bath, all cozy and clean in their pajamas, they lined up so I could kiss each one on the head and say “kulala” or “goodnight.”

I learned their stories. One had been left in a graveyard, one on the outskirts of the baby home, some in hospitals. Many had starved, some with both parents dead, some whose mothers died and whose fathers couldn’t take care of them. I cried nearly every day, of gratitude and heartbreak. I felt like I was walking exactly where I was supposed to be, a feeling like I had never felt before.

I left Mwanza wanting to know what was in the best interest, not just of the orphans I’d held each day, but also for the 8 million additional orphans in care institutions. I connected with professionals in the international adoption field, something that keeps me close to the place that feels like home, even when I’m not there. I’d seen the joy of international adoption but also became aware of the corruption that plagues it. Today 80 percent of children in care institutions around the world aren’t orphans, but have been either taken or bought from their families to meet the demand First World countries have for orphaned children. Not all orphanages and adoption processes look like the baby home in Mwanza.

Though much of what I have learned was shocking and scary, I am encouraged because I saw it done right at Forever Angels. I’m certain of one thing — the importance of being culturally diverse as individuals, families and communities. In all of my conversations with both advocates and opponents of international adoption, there has been one common denominator: We must respect and promote cultural awareness and sensitivity. We must champion it.

The babies I held in my arms every day are the voiceless. They have nothing, not even a mother or a father. Regardless of whether they grow up in Tanzania, East Africa, or Southern Pines, North Carolina, they need a community that is inclusive, that sees the beauty of diversity and the value of every life.

I am thankful for all those who made it possible for me to walk where I have always dreamed of walking, thankful to this community that taught me, the community that I am proud to call home. I’m thankful to Young Life Africa and Forever Angels. I hope we can continue to dream together and know that what is cultivated in our community does, in fact, have the power to change the world.

Samara Wright is a 2016 graduate of Pinecrest High School and a sophomore at Appalachian State University, majoring in communication studies. An intern for Young Life Africa, she plans on returning to Tanzania after graduation.

The Fabric of Life

In room 104 at the Pinehurst Resort, seamstress Wanda Capel holds forth, one stitch at a time

By Haley Ray

In the Carolina Hotel, on the ground floor of the east wing, a sewing machine clatters. The hum comes from room 104, the last stop at the end of a hallway full of guest accommodations. It’s the office where hotel seamstress Wanda Capel holds court daily with fabrics that need her mending.

She’s saved weddings like Cinderella’s fairy godmother from bridesmaids dresses gone bad and put more stitches in golfers’ pants than there are range balls on Maniac Hill. Boxed in by three sewing machines, surrounded by spools of colorful thread and cloth, Capel has spent 26 years working at the Carolina. An Employee of the Month trophy sits high on a shelf among pictures of her children and grandchildren. She grasps a piece of fabric with a fashionably gloved right hand. More utilitarian than stylish, the glove helps manage the pain in her palm, the arthritic remnant of a car accident.

Capel nonchalantly explains the quick fix for the pain. “I just put some numbing medicine on it because it hurts right there, and the more I cut the worse it feels,” she says, pointing to her palm. “So, I just put the glove on there and the medicine to work my hands. Just the sewing is OK, but it depends on how much cutting I do. Sometimes at night my hands will ache and I know it’s nothing but arthritis. But once I get them going in the morning they’ll last all day. I refuse to let them shut down on me.”

Before taking over room 104, Capel had a gig at Quality Mills in Carthage, drove a school bus, picked up the odd sewing job here and there, and taught an evening sewing class at Sandhills Community College. “I had a girlfriend who worked here . . . and she kept telling me that the lady they had was leaving and they were looking for somebody,” says Capel. “She kept telling me to go and apply. I said, ‘I’m not going over there. I won’t get that job.’ I was in one of those times where you don’t think anything is going to work out for you.” Finally, frustrated with her daytime boss, one Friday afternoon she plucked up the nerve to submit an application at the Carolina. Four days later she had the job.

Flying solo on a sewing machine is about as far from workplace drama as a human being can get. Capel mends alone and couldn’t be happier. “When I came here it was like the best thing that could have ever have happened to me,” she says. “Now I don’t have to concentrate on nothing but what I’m doing. I don’t have to worry about anybody that don’t like me, because it don’t even matter.”

Peaceful surroundings are not all Capel gained from the job. She also found her husband, Walter. He was working in transportation at the hotel and needed his uniforms fixed. After bringing them to room 104, he kept pestering her for a date. “I wouldn’t talk to him, though,” Capel remembers with a smile. “I don’t date people I work with.” He quit his job to work elsewhere, and before long they were married.

Capel mends and cares for family members as carefully as she stitches a frayed collar, working through personal tragedy and long-term illnesses. It was a car accident in 2000 that left her with a broken arm, a broken pelvis and the injuries to her skilled hands that would eventually turn arthritic. Recovering at home, in traction, Capel stubbornly refused to miss the high school graduation of her daughter, Alycia. Her doctor told her she wouldn’t be able to attend the ceremony unless she obtained the proper medical transportation.

Talk about an entrance. “My youngest sister, she got up with the rescue unit and she got me a rescue squad,” she says. “The nurses came out and showed her how to take me out of traction and put me back. So that graduation morning she came and she got me dressed and everything. The rescue unit came to get me, and I went to the graduation by ambulance. They rolled me out on the ball field and that’s where I watched her graduate.”

While the accident forced Capel out of work for a time, not much else has. A two-year battle with an illness required her to take a handful of pills a day and have a shot once a week. One of the medications caused memory loss and Capel still feels the effects, admitting to randomly forgetting names or stories she’s known her whole life.

In 2005, Capel lost one of her three children, the daughter whose graduation she rode in an ambulance to watch, when 22-year-old Alycia McKinnon was babysitting at her half-sister’s home. A vengeful boyfriend hired a man to kill the sibling that night. Neither the boyfriend nor the hit man had accounted for Alycia’s presence, and she was the one murdered. The killer was sentenced to life in prison. Only months before the tragedy, Capel’s mother had succumbed to cancer.

To cope with the twin losses, she turned to her work, making the mends and alterations of a hotel seamstress. “I worked through the whole time,” she says. “It’s like, after I lost my daughter, all I could hear her saying was, ‘Mama, you know you gotta work. You know you gotta work.’ From that point on, I have needed something to keep my mind occupied because I don’t need to think about certain things. Concentrating on my work is like my way out.”

So Capel stitches a life together, clattering away at her machine in room 104, fixing what others cannot. PS

Haley Ray is a Pinehurst native and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate, who recently returned from the deserts of Southern California.