Paula Horner Long

1936 - 2025

Paula Horner Long

October 26, 1936 - April 27, 2025

Raleigh, North Carolina - Paula Horner Long, beloved sister, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, great-aunt, and devoted friend, died in Raleigh surrounded by her loving family. Paula was eighty-eight years old.

Born to the late Paul Horner and Naomi Horner, Paula grew up on a farm in Nash County and graduated from Bailey High School. Future pro baseball player, Joel Long, caught Paula's eye in a freshman English class at East Carolina; they married after graduation and celebrated their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary a week ago. Paula began her professional career working as the right hand of Wyatt Taylor, the first director of Camp Sea Gull. She later taught at Needham Broughton High School in Raleigh, where she was a revered chair of the business department, instructing generations of students to type and later to use computers.

The earliest verified tale of Paula describes her as the winking baby of the family, aiming a peashooter at the neighbor's prize chicken. Her shot was true, the fowl fell dead, and her brother Leo threatened, "Bring me a glass of cold water or I am going to tell on you." Those who knew Paula can guess that she refused the bargain for she possessed a singular determination and sharp eye her entire life.

Paula and Joel renovated multiple homes in Raleigh and she scoured the classifieds and the highways and byways of North Carolina to furnish them in her classically elegant style. It was Paula's real estate vision in Carteret County that had perhaps the greatest effect on so many. In 1972, she and Joel purchased a mobile home in Durham, NC and used it to establish one of history's happiest beach getaways at a trailer park in Salter Path, NC. She and her mother Naomi famously served homemade ham biscuits and Pepsi to scores of guests around an avocado green table, taking breaks to cruise around in a purple VW convertible, or to walk her nephews across the highway to the arcade. Paula, Joel, and their daughter, Lisa, later decamped to a series of homes in Pine Knoll Shores, where Joel commanded the grill and Paula whipped up her famous sausage balls. Paula's pride and joy were her family and friends who became family. She was a matriarch in the grand sense of the term, and she inspired generations of friends from literally all over the world to follow her to "the beach." When not feeding these legions, Paula rode her exercise bike religiously and held court at the Ocean Terrace pool, where she watched dozens of children learn to walk, swim, go off to college, and start their own families.

Paula's love orbited in a wide arc, and innumerable are the visits she made to friends and family at home, in hospitals, and in nursing homes. Armed with food, party decorations, and irrepressible enthusiasm, Paula would breeze in and start the fun. It did not matter if your birthday had passed: Paula would invent an excuse to celebrate you in honor of Arbor Day, and if she suspected you had skipped a meal, you were dealt a bag heavily laden with homemade chicken salad sandwiches. This writer is now free to reveal that Paula also regularly ignored Wake County Public School policy by interrupting classes to deliver edible birthday gifts to her grand-nieces in elementary school.

Paula was a lifelong Methodist and some of her colorful phrases like "poorer than Job's turkey" reflected her love of the Bible. For decades, Paula kept the US Postal Service in business with her beautifully hand-written notes and knack for selecting the perfect gift. For many a child loved by Paula and faced with the choice of a single personal item to take to camp or on a field trip, the selection was inevitably a lovingly-selected pillow with their name artfully stitched in blue or a monogrammed tote. Despite many attempts, no one has replicated Paula's cheese grits, peppermint bark, shrimp casserole or peach cobbler. Resistance to Paula, as the saying goes, was generally futile. A merchant at Crabtree Mall once foolishly dared to refuse to refund an item Paula sought to return, so she announced that she would stand outside the store and publicize this decision to passersby. The merchant quickly accepted the return. Those who professed to want nothing for their birthday were rebuffed and rewarded with a gigantic, personalized cookie.

Paula always showed up, and there was nothing like having her in your corner. She and Joel made countless trips from Raleigh to Richmond to visit their beloved daughter Lisa, son-in-law Billy, and grandsons Billy, Mark, and Collins. If there was a football game, wrestling match, swim meet or scouting event for her grandsons, Paula was there. Paula was the greatest fan anyone could want, and her cheer of "You go, boy!" made you feel like anything was possible and worth striving for. A world without Paula is difficult to imagine, but a large, unbroken circle knows that her deep, fierce, and generous love will long remain to nurture and inspire.

Paula was preceded in death by her parents and by her siblings, Jerry Leo Horner, Sr., William Horner, and Laverne Horner Brown, and by her son-in-law, William John Burlee III. She is survived by her husband of 65 years, Joel Long, her daughter Elisabeth Long Burlee, and her three grandsons, William John Burlee IV, Mark Christopher Burlee, and Joel Collins Burlee.

A memorial service will be held at Hayes Barton United Methodist Church on Wednesday, April 30, at 1:00 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Camp Sea Gull.

Brown-Wynne, 300 Saint Mary's Street, Raleigh is serving the Long family.