Valeria S Peay

COLUMBIA — Service for Valeria Shealy Peay, “Val”, will be held Saturday, September 21, 2013 at 11 a.m. at St. Peter Lutheran Church, 900 Dreher Island Road, Chapin, with burial in St. Peter Lutheran Church Cemetery. Rev. David Tholstrup will officiate. The family will receive friends at the church one hour prior to the service. Memorials may be made to St. Peter Lutheran Church at the above address. Caughman Harman Funeral Home, Chapin Chapel is assisting the family.

“Val” died Monday, September 9, 2013, at Brian Center Nursing Care in Columbia. She was born in Chapin on April 25, 1919 on Long Pine Road, between her paternal and maternal grandparents’ homesteads. She was the daughter of the late Levi Yoder and Leona Essie Fulmer Shealy. She grew up in what is known locally as the "Dutch Fork" region of South Carolina, in a community of Lutheran farmers of German descent, who originally immigrated to America in the 1730s. She and her sister and brother helped on the farm, where she learned how to raise food and flowers. She learned to make beautiful quilts from her maternal grandmother, Ada Wessinger Fulmer. She started grammar school at Pine Ridge School, which eventually merged into Chapin Grammar. She attended Chapin High School.

After high school, in the late 1930s, she began work at a cotton mill in Whitmire, South Carolina, as a caregiver for the children of parents who both worked in the mills. Her job description was “nanny”, the term in use at the time. After a time she began working in the cotton mill on the floor, where she met her future husband Curtis Peay. They were married in Whitmire in 1940. Sometime later, she and Curtis moved to the Columbia area, where Curtis was employed as a metalworker in a sign-making company. During this time, she worked at a pastry and coffee shop in the Five Points area at the take-out window, where she was known for her diligence in remembering the preferences and arrival times of her regular customers so well that she had their order ready for them before they came in the morning to pick it up.

In 1962 she and Curtis built a home on Lexington Avenue in Chapin next to her parents’ house (now the office of Douglas and Company, a real estate firm). She took care of her mother Essie Shealy until her death in 1963, and her father Levi Yoder Shealy until his death in 1979. She lived there until the time came for her to move to Generations of Chapin in 2009.

In the late 1960s, “Val” realized that there was a need for a kindergarten in the Chapin area. So she founded "Val's Kindergarten" on her property, built behind the house by her husband Curtis. It was in operation until the late 1970s. Many “alumni” from her kindergarten live in the Chapin area today, and remember “Miss Val” with much love and affection.

“Val” was a devout Lutheran, making St. Peter Lutheran Church a vital part of her life, and actively participating in many activities and church groups. She was a singular, unique person who charmed just about anyone who got to know her. Her resoluteness and strength was much admired by the extensive number of close and distant relatives in the area, and by many friends. She was multi-talented, running a successful kindergarten, caring for her family, and creating a garden and landscape around her house that looked like a little paradise.

“Val” is survived by her brother, Dr. Yoder Fulmer Shealy of Birmingham, Alabama, nephews, Steven Marlowe and Robin Shealy, and nieces, Nancy Shealy and Priscilla Thomas. Her beloved husband, Curtis and her sister, Eunice Shealy Marlowe preceded her in death.