Beth Eleanor Cummings Paschal

Beth Eleanor Cummings Paschal, of Raleigh, NC, died on February 8, 2009, of complications from pneumonia.
Her husband of 50 years, Dr. George W. Paschal Jr., died in 1995.
She is survived by her sons and their wives and her daughter, Dr. George W. Paschal III and Dell Parker Paschal, Robert Cummings Paschal and Anna Dorsett Paschal, and Laura Huston Paschal; and by her grandchildren, George W. Paschal IV, Laura Adams Paschal, Robert C. Paschal Jr., Anna Lee Paschal, and Andrew Dorsett Paschal.
Born in Lohrville, IA, on June 26, 1917, she was the youngest child of Harry Ross Cummings and Agnes Baird Cummings. There were two sons, Donald Baird (1913-1991) and Richard Huston (1915-1986). She attended high school in Ames, IA, and then entered Iowa State University there as a Textiles and Clothing major. After two years, she switched to Journalism and Home Economics. All four of these fields were to remain active interests throughout her life. She graduated from Iowa State in 1939, with a BS, and a position awaiting her as Associate Editor at The Farm Journal. The job took her to Philadelphia where the magazine was published and where she met her husband-to-be, who practiced in the city after receiving his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College (now Thomas Jefferson University) in 1931. She served as Associate Editor until 1945.
Dr. Paschal spent the war years in Egypt (as chief of the Surgical Service of the 38th General Hospital and Surgical Consultant to the Africa-Middle East Theater). The couple married on December 20, 1944 while he was home on leave; two years later, they moved to Raleigh. Soon Dr. and Mrs. Paschal joined Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, where they remained steadfast members. In the early 1950s, they took the bold step of inviting James Fitzgibbon, one of the gifted architects at the very young School of Design at North Carolina State, to design a house for them. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, one of the first examples of modern architecture to qualify.
Mrs. Paschal was quickly drawn into civic activities. Her Junior League placement at the North Carolina Museum of Art in 1955, more than a year before it opened, developed into a lifetime of service to the Museum and the arts. Although Mrs. Paschal took an interest in just about every aspect of the Museum, education always took top priority. Bringing the Museum into the curriculum of public and private schools was one of her early missions. In 1962, she and the NCMA Curator of Education took the first Museum slide show into a classroom. Ten years after her Museum initiation, she began the first of three terms as President of the North Carolina Art Society, the NCMA's membership arm. Notably, during the time Mrs. Paschal was President of this statewide art society, Dr. Paschal was President of the North Carolina Medical Society, and together, in 1965, they were named Tar Heels of the Week by the News & Observer.
In 1976, the Museum published A Celebration of Art and Cookery, a cookbook illustrated with works of art in the NCMA collection compiled by Mrs. Paschal in a two-year labor of love. Over the decades, she served the Museum as docent, Board member, fund raiser, volunteer. For a number of years, her role as a trustee centered on her membership on the Works of Art Committee of the Board. Her enlightened commitment and forceful advocacy have been recognized. To cite two accolades: In her honor, the Art Society gave the Museum Sunset (Medusa), a painting by Eugene Berman, in 1974; and in 2006, the Museum presented her with the Thomas S. Kenan III Leadership in the Arts Award.
Mrs. Paschal, as president (1979-1980) of the Board of the Friends of the Library at North Carolina State University, worked with the staff to help reach the millionth-volume goal, making NCSU eligible for a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. She took particular pleasure in her involvement with this institution, for she, like her husband, was a great lover of learning and libraries. Another assignment she relished was her appointment to the committee to select an architect for a new fine arts center at Wake Forest University, a school to which she and her husband, a Wake Forest alumnus, were devoted. Also indicative of the couple's pervasive enthusiasm for the arts and education was their active support of the National Humanities Center from its inception, and Mrs. Paschal was among the first Board members of the Association for the American Dance Festival when the Festival relocated to Durham in 1978. Her alma mater presented her with the Alumni Merit Award in 1980; she was inducted into the Raleigh Academy of Women in 1983 (its inaugural year); and in 1986, she received the Raleigh Medal of Arts. In 2007, she and her late husband were inducted into the Raleigh Hall of Fame.
At home on the dance floor and the tennis court, in the boardroom and the kitchen, at a sewing machine and a typewriter, Beth Paschal moved nimbly between responsibilities and festivities. She remained lithe into her eighties. She made time every day to read, she liked to fit in going to the Carolina Ballet, and in warm weather, she regularly visited her husband's garden, tending to the roses. She thrilled at the ways music enlarged her life. Her last years were enriched by the small jazz ensembles she followed so enthusiastically and the North Carolina Symphony. She danced her way through life, buoyant and joyful, embracing all that the world had to offer-the arts, literature, the world of nature, an ever-expanding circle of friends. Still she made time to savor in detail each paragraph, each painting, each person. She had a gift for happiness, and perhaps her greatest gift to the rest of us is her example.
The family acknowledges with warm gratitude the exceptional care Mrs. Paschal received throughout her last year from Patricia Bullock and her team at Creative Care, as well as from the staff and physicians at Rex Hospital.
A memorial service for Mrs. Paschal will be held at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church on Wednesday, February 11, 2009, at 11:00 a.m. Friends are welcome at the home of George and Dell Paschal, 540 Hertford Street, Raleigh, on Tuesday, February 10, 2009, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Those contemplating a remembrance are asked to consider, in lieu of flowers, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, 1801 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, N.C. 27605, or the North Carolina Museum of Art, 4630 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-4630.
Condolences may be made to the family at www.brownwynne.com