A.C. Snow

"A.C. Snow takes interesting spiritual truths and experiences and expresses them in shirt-sleeve language that all can understand and enjoy. An author once said that ‘the bells of the church are out of tune with the music in the streets.’ A.C. frequently takes this oft-evident discord and creates harmony.” — The Rev. Dr. Albert Edwards, 1980

A.C. Snow died at his home in Raleigh on January 14, 2022, at age 97.

Though he was a revered reporter, editor and columnist, winning 13 N.C. Press Association Awards and publishing four books of columns, his true talent went beyond writing. It was connecting with people. This natural ability resonated far outside journalism as a husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin, colleague, adviser, neighbor, friend and stranger.

He was born on July 16, 1924, the youngest of 16 children of Ida Victoria Snow and Byrd Winfield Snow on a tobacco farm in Surry County. His siblings, many who had families of their own by the time Aubert Calvin arrived, often said this child of the Great Depression was spoiled. The evidence: he got jelly on his biscuit.

After graduating salutatorian of his class at Dobson High School in 1942, he worked 11 different odd jobs from soda jerk to the commissary manager at a textile mill until he was drafted into the U.S. Air Corps, which later became the Air Force.

The Pacific was the first ocean he ever saw as he crossed it in a troop carrier headed for World War II. A.C. joined other teenagers and young men who shared tents with snakes and mosquitoes as they island hopped from New Guinea throughout the South Pacific. They buried friends who died on the islands, as well as enemies who washed up on shore, in sandy graves marked with crosses made of palm fronds.

He was in Tokyo a few days after the war ended, celebrating with elated friends. Each held up a pack of cigarettes, which had been unavailable in Japan for years, and sold them for enough money to finance a six-course meal at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel.

The GI Bill paid his way for two years at Mars Hill College where excellent teachers continued his passion for learning, one instilling an appreciation for classical music, and housemothers patrolled the parlors in the girls’ dorms with a ruler, keeping males and females six inches apart.

He went on to his beloved University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which he would later describe as “Camelot.” He graduated in 1950 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in Journalism.

UNC professor Stuart Sechriest drove him to an interview at the Burlington Times News, where he landed a job covering the city and writing a human interest column. Seven years later A.C. took a job at The Raleigh Times and continued writing his column.

He was accompanying a Burlington friend who was shopping for his wife’s Christmas present at Brownhill’s in Greensboro when he met another customer, Nancy Jean Hill. The shop owner asked the recent graduate of Woman’s College to model the red coat A.C.’s friend was considering.

“Now any woman would love to find that coat under her Christmas tree,” the sales lady gushed.

“I’d like to find the model under my Christmas tree,” A.C. said.

He married his “beloved wife, soulmate and helpmate” in 1958 after Nancy finished her master’s degree at Northwestern University. The Snows began married life at the Raleigh Apartments so Nancy could walk to Needham Broughton High School where she taught English and public speaking.

In 1960 they built a house on a wooded lot with a creek in Brookhaven, which was surrounded by cow pastures and considered far outside of Raleigh. Daughter Melinda was born in 1965, followed by Katherine in 1968. As a new father at age 41 and then again at age 44, A.C. feared he was too old to raise children, but soon became a “hands-on girl dad” long before it was a phrase. He was very involved in homework, school projects, Field Days, musical productions, Girl Scout cookie selling, broken hearts, spats with friends, speech contests and carpooling.

Summers brought family trips to Atlantic Beach and annual North Carolina Press Association conferences at Pinehurst and The Grove Park Inn. A.C. also gave Nancy a vacation at home every summer while he took Katherine and Melinda to visit their throng of cousins in Dobson and Boonville. Holidays were usually in Randolph County with Nancy’s mother, whom A.C. adored, and her two sisters’ families, which he embraced as closely as his own.

After the girls were grown, A.C. and Nancy enjoyed trips to Europe and Canada as well as a few “crossings” on the Queen Mary II. They played daily scrabble games on the road and at home for years.

A.C. became a grandfather at age 72 to Olivia, and soon after, Charlotte and Wade. Once again, he worried he was too old to fill the role, but was a natural. He picked the name of SnowDaddy, and was ever present in their lives, often in person in Florida or North Carolina and by email and typed letters when the miles kept them apart.

He also stayed in close contact with his many nieces and nephews and their children. He attended the annual Snow Reunion, the first Sunday of June in Yadkinville for decades. When just four of the original 16 siblings were left, he said he was blessed to make it to “the final four.” And then there was just A.C.

He was most devoted to his “blood kin,” as well as Nancy’s, but his readers were a close second. He always appreciated them for reading his column and sending reactions, good or bad.

A.C. was inducted into the N.C. Media and Journalism Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Raleigh Hall of Fame in 2018. He was a longtime member of First Presbyterian Church until the early 1990s when he and Nancy joined Edenton Street United Methodist Church. The Foundry Fellowship Sunday School class became yet another family he loved.

A.C. is preceded in death by his daughter Melinda Jean Snow. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Hill Snow; daughter, Katherine Snow Smith; grandchildren Olivia Snow Smith, Charlotte Melinda Smith and Wade Covington Smith; sister-in-law Susan Hill White; and many nieces and nephews whom he loved greatly.

Following a private burial, a memorial service will be held at Edenton Street United Methodist Church on Monday, January 24th at 2 p.m. A reception will immediately follow at the church. Friends and colleagues are invited to gather at The Raleigh Times restaurant at 14 E Hargett Street at 7:30 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in A.C.’s name to the following: The A.C. Snow and Katherine Snow Smith Scholarship, fund designation #242891, UNC-Chapel Hill, PO Box 309, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514, or The Mars Hill Chicken Soup Award, (which honors faculty and staff for extra caring), Office of Advancement, Mars Hill University, P.O. Box 6792, Mars Hill, N.C. 28754, or The Ruth Sheets Adult Care Center at Edenton Street UMC, 228 W. Edenton St., Raleigh, N.C. 27603.

Services are being handled by Brown-Wynne Funeral Home, 300 Saint Mary's St. Raleigh, NC 27605.

Please see link below regarding a news story featured in the N&O on Monday, January 17th.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article257323357.html