Elisabeth Catherine Evans Rice

On July 8, 2016, Elisabeth Evans Rice passed away peacefully at Stewart Health Center, Springmoor Retirement Community in Raleigh. Born Elisabeth Catherine Evans in Gallatin, Tennessee on April 11, 1923, she was the fourth of five children of James Hiram and Minnie Lee Carson Evans. Apart from a few early childhood years spent in Wetumpka, Alabama, where her parents joined a group of other Tennesseans to farm along the Coosa River, Elisabeth grew up just outside the small town of Hohenwald in middle Tennessee’s Lewis County.

Mrs. Rice received a Bachelor of Science in Home Economics from Tennessee Technical University in Cookeville, TN, an education that led to her position as the assistant dietitian at Meredith College in the 1960s. She later served as Manager for the move of the Women’s Club of Raleigh to its current location, and subsequent food service manager in the 1970s. She was a long-time member of Hillyer Memorial Christian Church in Raleigh, where she participated in many aspects of the church functions, and was a devoted member of the church choir.

Elisabeth was married to the late Dr. John Carl Rice in 1946 and enjoyed 58 years of devoted marriage. In 1961 she eagerly agreed to take the family of four children to Lima, Peru, where John directed an agricultural program for NC State for two years. Much of her later years with John were spent together traveling and with friends and family at a house they built in mountainous Ashe County. Aside from entertaining friends there, Elisabeth found joy in identifying and creating watercolor paintings of the native wildflowers of the region.

Surviving Elisabeth Rice are her sister, Virginia Evans Doucette, of Raleigh, and her three children: Sharon Elisabeth Rice Gates, of Mount Airy, NC; Robert Armstrong Rice, of Takoma Park, MD; and Catherine Rice Parker, (husband Ralph L. Parker) of Apex, NC. She was preceded in death by her eldest child, Raleigh architect John Evans Rice, in 2012. Also surviving her are four grandchildren, William C. Rice, of Straits, NC, Elisabeth E. Gates, of Naples, FL, Virginia I. Lanier, of Chapel Hill, NC, Anika May Rice, of Oakland, CA, and Elisabeth Elaine Parker of Apex, NC, as well as six great-grandchildren.

Memorial service for Elisabeth Rice will be held at Hillyer Memorial Christian Church at 718 Hillsborough St. in Raleigh on Tuesday, July 12, 2016. Visitation at 1:00p.m., service in the sanctuary at 2:00p.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorials be made to the John Evans Rice Scholarship Fund at NCSU School of Design, contact Carla Abramczyk at [email protected] , (919)513-4310 or the John C. Rice Scholarship in the NSCU CALS department, (919) 515-2614.

Arrangements by Brown-Wynne Funeral Home, Saint Mary's St., Raleigh.