Maureen Gayle Levine

LEXINGTON - Funeral services for Maureen Gayle Levine, 71, will be held at 1:00 p.m. Sunday, September 20, 2015 at Caughman-Harman Funeral Home, Lexington Chapel with interment in Woodridge Memorial Park. The family will receive friends from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. Sunday at the funeral home Chapel. . The family will receive friends after the service at 273 Hallmark Drive, Lexington, SC.

Memorials may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105

Ms. Levine was born April 22, 1944 in Ellenton, SC and passed away on Thursday, September 17, 2015. She was a daughter of the late Clovis James and Louise Thompson James. Gayle, a native of South Carolina, lived and worked in her favorite place, New York City, for many years, including working as the Executive Secretary/Personal Assistant to the Executive Vice President of a large New York Investment firm in Rockefeller Center. Upon returning to South Carolina, she worked for the South Carolina Residential Homebuilders Commission, where she was instrumental in setting up the office of this new state licensing agency. After living in Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale for several years after a spousal job transfer, she once again returned to South Carolina where she was a court reporter, and for seventeen years was the owner/operator of Fine Choice on Devine Street. Gayle typed and edited manuscripts for South Carolina writers and well-known political figures. Past books included: South Carolina at the Brink, Robert McNair and the Politics of Civil Rights by Phil Grose, Governor Carroll Campbell’s Challenge and Triumph and Presumed Guilty—the Tim Wilkes Story by Ben Greer, Henriette Hampton Morris’ Sisters in Love, James Dickey’s To The White Sea, transcribed Mr. Dickey’s life history for utilization at USC’s Thomas Cooper Library, Dr. Edmund Taylor’s historical novels, Dean Dubose and Kent Krell’s Tales of Hugo, Frank Munson’s The Q-Factor, a book for the Army Chaplaincy by approval from the Pentagon, and the late Governor John West’s autobiography. In 2005, she became the business manager for the Columbia Classical Ballet, setting up the ballet’s first official office. Gayle is a past member of the Verbatim Court Reporters Association, former secretary of the Midlands Chapter of the Kidney Foundation, volunteered with Children’s Unlimited, the Lexington County School System teaching children phonetics, coached a children’s softball league, coached a bowling league for youths for eight years, and served as Secretary on the Executive Board of the Columbia Classical Ballet. However, her biggest accomplishment was maintaining a household and close knit family, to include three daughters, grandchildren, her mother who passed away several years ago, and her brother who has been residing with her. Gayle was a wonderful cook, who enjoyed Sunday dinners like it was Thanksgiving every week and everyone was always welcomed, family and friends! My mother never met a stranger. She had a wonderful sense of style that made her fit right in when she lived in New York City for so many years. Nobody would ever have known that she was from a small town in the south. Besides spending time with her family, shagging was her favorite past time. She could glide across the floor with such grace and elegance. Gayle’s senior quote in her high school yearbook sums her up best, “The small courtesies sweeten life”.

Caughman-Harman Funeral Home, Lexington Chapel is assisting the family with arrangements.