Carol McCoy Lawson

COLUMBIA – Carol McCoy Lawson, 90, passed away on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at Still Hopes Episcopal Retirement Community in West Columbia, SC. A funeral service will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 18, 2019 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Columbia, with burial following in Greenlawn Memorial Park. Dunbar Funeral Home, Devine Street Chapel, is assisting the family.

Carol was born on December 17, 1928 in Charlotte, NC to the late Fenner Hammond Springs McCoy and Myrtle Holdgraf McCoy. She grew up in Concord, NC and graduated from Concord High School. She later attended Women’s Business College in Charlotte.

On November 4, 1950, Carol married WWII veteran and professional baseball player, Roy Lawson, in Concord. In 1951, the couple moved from Randolph Air Force Base in Texas to Aiken, SC, where they lovingly raised three children during Mr. Lawson’s tenure as an employee of DuPont, Savannah River Plant. In 1964, the family moved to Johnston, SC pursuant to Mr. Lawson’s accepting the position of head golf professional at Persimmon Hills C.C., near Saluda, SC, where Carol dutifully served as business partner, office manager and friend to all that walked through the doors of the pro shop. When Mr. Lawson took the head professional job at Walhalla Golf Club (now The Woodlands) in Columbia, Carol began what would become a successful, decades-long real estate career where she served in a variety of roles, from sales and management to brokerage. Her work experience included stints with her own Lawson Company and various real estate professionals and companies in the Midlands of South Carolina, including Russell & Jeffcoat, RE/MAX and Real Estate Partners.

When not hard at work, Carol was an avid golfer, bridge player and world traveler, making several trips to the American Southwest, Canada and Europe with the SCETV Endowment and friends from Aiken. She loved people and animals and donated to many charities over the years in support of the needy. She was a loving and supportive wife and mother to her three children and four grandchildren. Her family, friends and acquaintances knew first-hand of her wonderful sense of humor, inner strength and selflessness. But above all, those who knew Carol will remember her positive outlook on life and empathy and grace she showed in helping others cope with the vicissitudes of life.

Carol was descended from one of the oldest European families to settle into Mecklenburg County, NC. She was a direct descendant of two signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in 1775, John McKnitt Alexander and Major John Davidson, and great-great niece of Revolutionary War Gen. William Lee Davidson, for whom Davidson College was named. Her grandfather, Albert McCoy, was an officer in the North Carolina Infantry and fought all four years of the Civil War. A great-uncle, John F. McCoy, was killed at Gettysburg.

Survivors include her sons, J. Marshall Lawson (wife, Beth) of Columbia and John Marvin Lawson (wife, Nan) of Alexandria, VA; daughter, Amy Lawson Spigner (husband, Terry) of Hopkins; grandchildren, Christopher and Corey Spigner and Jackson and Thaddeus Lawson. Carol’s older brother, John Albert McCoy, of Houston Texas died in 2001, and her younger brother, Hammond Springs McCoy, of Winston Salem, NC died in 2012.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, 322 Eighth Avenue, 7th Floor, New York, NC 10001 (alzfdn.org).

Please sign the online guestbook at www.dunbarfunerals.com.