Hugh Gratton Casey

Hugh Gratton Casey
1927 - 2007
Mr. Casey, 80, died peacefully Monday morning, December 17, after living a rich and full life. A noted Charlotte attorney for more than thirty years, Hugh led early environmental protection cases and strove to "help the little guy." He and his wife, Bettie, have lived in Davidson, NC for the past 25 years, after raising a family of five sons and daughters in Charlotte, NC.
Hugh is survived by his wife Bettie, son Hugh Richardson Casey of Boulder, CO, daughter Catheryn Ann Maier of Davidson, NC, Kevin Grattan Casey of Orlando, FL, daughter, Madeleine Sheeran of Winston-Salem, NC, son, Patrick Williams Casey of Davidson, NC, brothers Mike Casey of Albuquerque, NM and Robert Casey, who lives with his wife Johanna, in Ventura, CA,. Hugh has five grandsons, Evan Maier, Philip Maier, Zach and Nick Sheeran, Sean Casey and a granddaughter, Ashely Brooke Haverly.
After enjoying an appetizer of French champagne and caviar while celebrating his 80th birthday at home with friends, Hugh slipped into a deep sleep. He had suffered a stroke, and died at the hospital several hours later.
Hugh, a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, was well-respected throughout the Charlotte metro area as a successful and talented attorney. He was an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, an outspoken political activist, a gracious host, and an engaging story-teller with a quick wit and unshakable sense of justice under the rule of law. His unquenchable curiosity and blithe spirit charmed nearly everyone he met.
Born in Chicago in 1927, Hugh grew up in its western suburbs. He attended the University of Chicago, where he earned a PhB (bachelor of philosophy), an MA, and a JD. He met his wife Bettie when they both worked in Washington, D.C. immediately following WWII. They married in 1952. After experiencing several Chicago winters, and having their first two children, Bettie convinced him to move to her native Charlotte, where Hugh established a private law practice, and they raised their five children.
As a child during summers, Hugh left the big city to stay with members of his mother's family in rural Mississippi. His identification with the working man began when his father urged him to go to college, but Hugh had to earn money to pay for it-and only hard manual labor jobs were available. His love affair with train travel began as a teenager, when he "worked on the railroad" as a crewman in Chicago's massive rail yards. He moved on to become a merchant seaman on Chicago's tough docks in the mid-1940s, rising to the rank of Able Bodied Seaman, and travelled the world on tramp steamers and cargo ships, which provided a wealth of material for his stories.
The only college summer he did not work on ships was his second. As he fondly related, he got so seasick on his first ship, he thought working on ranches would be easier. The next summer he went out to Montana, but actually found the life to be much harder-and the menu of cowboy coffee, biscuits and boot-tough venison pretty tiresome. Just before the autumn hay season, when he would be expected to sling bales of green grass up onto trucks as they rolled through the fields, as old ranch hand put it to him "If I was you, green, I'd drift..." (Green as in 'greenhorn' or inexperienced ranch hand.) Hugh did so.
A life-long admirer of French culture, Hugh became accomplished in the French language, history, cuisine, and wines. In the early 1980s, he and Bettie opened a gourmet French restaurant, La Toque Blanche, in Davidson, where Bettie was the chef, and Hugh wore the hats of sommelier, boulanger, and maitre d'htel. He would rush home from his Charlotte law office, to don a tuxedo to happily and graciously greet customers at the restaurant's door with the meticulously prepared menu and wine list. Gourmets across the Piedmont treasured his handmade French baguettes. His valiant efforts with home-brewed beer, wine, and aperitifs were respected and encouraged by family and friends.
Hugh and Bettie closed the restaurant in the mid-1980s, when Hugh was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to teach business law at France's University of Poitiers for a year. In 1987-88, he was awarded another Fulbright to teach international law at Wuhan University in China, where he and Bettie traveled extensively, including side trips to Tibet, Hong-Kong, and Thailand. An editorial Hugh wrote upon returning to the U.S. warned of political storm clouds brewing in China, which foreshadowed the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
Before their long sojourns to France and China, Hugh and Betty had made dozens of trips through Europe, traveling by bicycle, car, train, and even canal boat. A Trans-Atlantic trip in the mid-1990s on a sailing ship was the fulfillment of his sailor's dream. He loved foreign cultures and languages, and became fluent in French and Spanish, with a smattering of Chinese, Italian, and a half-dozen other languages that caught his attention.
Hugh was politically active, in progressive Democratic causes, and was proud to call himself a "yellow-dog" Democrat, especially to his many Republican friends who were members of Davidson's WIMPS social club. He was an early critic of the Vietnam war in the 1960s, citing Vietnam's long history with China and as a French colony, and their failures to exert control over it. For several years, he was Davidson's Democratic Party precinct captain.
Hugh's progressive view of life led his law firm to be the first in Charlotte to adopt personal computers. He had a noteworthy, if stormy relationship with modern technology ever after.
In recent years, Hugh organized several peace marches in Davidson, and also proudly walked in most of Davidson's 4th of July parades with his WWII vintage 48-star flag. A prolific writer, Hugh's letters to the editor were published frequently in the Charlotte Observer. His humorous essays, depicted various aspects of his life, often as the reluctant aide-de-camp for Bettie's well-attended garden tours at their historic South Street home.
A staunch advocate of environmentally sound transport, Hugh could be seen every day walking through town, usually with a pile of books under his arm on his way to the library, and his beloved dog, Wags, following on a leash. For many years, he was an avid bicyclist, and even commuted for a time by bike from Davidson to his Charlotte office.
Hugh specified that his body should be donated to the Bowman Gray Medical School at Wake Forest University, and quipped proudly that he had been "admitted to medical school.'
A remembrance ceremony for friends is being planned. Please contact a member of the family for more details. Instead of sending flowers, memorial gifts may be made to The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, 310 North Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC 28202. Funds will be used to purchase books for the Davidson Town Library in memory of Hugh Casey.