Lynda Mee

Dorothy Lynda Wood Mee, daughter of the late Carl Johan Wood and Evelyn Charlene Richards Wood, was born in Chattanooga, TN, April 4, 1938. She died in the early morning of April 22, 2026, of natural causes, after a pleasant evening with family at home in Ranson, WV, where she had been living since 2021, having moved to be closer to her children. She was still living relatively independently up until her death.

Besides her parents, Lynda was predeceased by her husband of 50 years, Carl Mee III; sisters Dolores Nell Wood and Ola Vanoy Wood Manley; brother David Richards Wood; sisters-in-law Anne Mee, Telia Bryars, Cookie Mee, Shannon Wood, and Diane Stargel; brothers-in-law Derrick Mee and Ladd Fields; cousins Charlie Fields, Walter “Buddy” Wood, and Mary Edith Snider; and nieces and nephews Madeline Mee, David Mee, and Carla Mee.

She is survived by her brothers James Burnette Wood, Roy Thomas Wood (Julie), and Joe Stargel; brothers-in-law Ron Manley (Sue) and Mike Mee (Donnette); sister-in-law Ellen Fields; cousins including Dorothy and Armand Trottier, Michael Fields, Martha Hager, and Chip and Alice Katterhenry; children Kathleen Dolores Mee Avins (Joe Avins, Scott Pinkham), Heather (nee Susan) Elisabeth Mee Pankl (Mike Livingston), Eric Andrew Mee (Pam Perricone), and Alison Michelle Mee (John Freiler); grandchildren Evan Boundsmith (Aryn), Grace Pankl, Ruth Pankl (Dillon Murray), Samantha Zanvettor, Emily Zanvettor, Nina Avins, Carl Freiler, Maxwell Freiler, Paul Perricone, Frank Perricone, and Lucas Perricone; great grandchild Rowan Boundsmith; and numerous nieces, nephews, and other family and friends, including her bestie of 60+ years, Jef Berg.

Lynda was pleased to note she had lived in nine states, starting with Tennessee, where she spent her childhood, teenage, and college years in St. Elmo, at the foot of Lookout Mountain (where she worked in a souvenir shop at least one summer, riding the incline to and from work); and Texas, where her family stayed near her maternal grandparents for a time during WW2, in case her father was called up – long enough for her to attend the first half of first grade. (Always a smartie, Lynda skipped ahead to second grade on moving back to Chattanooga for the second half of the year, since she was already reading more than proficiently, having started that process even before grade school.)

Next were Florida and Georgia, where Lynda taught elementary school after graduating from University of Chattanooga (where she was in the Phi Mu sorority); followed by Maryland and Virginia, where she lived in her early years of married life, first in Charlottesville, while Carl was working on his master’s degree (Lynda likely typing up some of his mathematics papers), then in Suitland, where she was living when her oldest two children, Kathleen and Susan/Heather, were born; and Tyson’s Corner/Vienna, where she was living when her son Eric was born. (Their street, Dogwood Lane, which was the edge of rural back then, is now part of the huge mall that was starting to come up at the time.) While living in Maryland and Virginia, Lynda experienced space exploration at close hand, as Carl was working on computer programming for the Apollo missions.

Scotch Plains, New Jersey, was next, where their youngest child, Alison, was born, shortly after they moved up for Carl to work at Bell Labs. Their close friends, Rod and Jef, had also recently moved to NJ. Jef was Lynda’s best friend for over 60 years, and they shared many adventures both together and through weekly phone calls recounting their lives to each other, from the mundane to the profound, always with good humor and laughter.

Besides teaching 1st and 2nd grade before marriage, Lynda taught 6th grade in Rockfish Valley, VA, driving back and forth through the mountains. (One little boy would grin at her whenever it snowed, thinking she must be anxious about the drive – she wasn’t, especially, but let him think so since he seemed to enjoy it.) In NJ, once all four children were in school, Lynda went back to work, first part-time and later, when they were older, full-time, at various jobs, from helping out at the YMCA, to working the desk at Muhlenberg hospital, to telemarketing (asking people to agree to have a salesman come by to ask if they wanted to switch their heating to oil; she excelled at this work, as if someone wasn’t interested, she politely thanked them for their time and moved on to the next call), to Union County College, where she was secretary for the math department.

Wherever Lynda worked, she was interested in helping people, whether it was a stressed-out student who had missed their exam or someone recently released from prison looking for a job (through her work later in SC with Manpower).

Carl and Lynda moved to South Carolina in 1996 after Carl took early retirement, moving to Pickens, where they lived together until Carl’s death in 2012 and where Lynda continued to live until the summer of 2021, when she moved to Ranson. In SC, Carl and Lynda fell in love with the community at St. Michaels church in Easley, where they made many close friends, including Parker and Debbie Marks, Pam Fowler and Lisa Fagala, Jim Brummitt and Barbara Collins, just to name a few.

Lynda always loved meeting people and learning about their lives. If she’d had that bent, she would have made a great spy. In just five minutes of gentle listening, she would know not only how many kids you had, how long you’d been married and where you were going on your next anniversary, and what parts of your body were aching, but what you’d had for breakfast, what your son was looking forward to next weekend, and that you’d always dreamed of being a baseball pitcher. Literally, five minutes. This was because she truly enjoyed people and came to love them quickly and cared for so many.

Lynda was raised Episcopal and deeply spiritual all her life, in a quiet way. Even after mobility challenges kept her from regular church attendance, she kept her prayer book nearby on her chairside table as well as prayer lists in her notebook for the many friends and family members she prayed for every morning before doing Wordle.

She almost always had a book or puzzle book in her hand, from an early age. When in the chaos of motherhood with four children from kindergarten to teens, frequently an Agatha Christie paperback might be found open in the freezer, where it had been set momentarily during dinner preparations and searched for later.

The oldest of six children, Lynda had a strong sense of fairness. She also never wanted to miss anything. She had bat ears and would hear if someone had woken up and wanted to be up with them and would not want to be the first one to bed – she did sleep, but one rarely saw her do so. However, as a teen, she loved visiting her grandma for a week in the summer, just by herself, and spending the entire time reading.

Lynda also loved music, would not consider herself a singer but had a beautiful voice and knew all the songs, from hymns to country to (when her kids were teens) AC/DC. She loved watching the Voice and rooting for all the aspiring singers.

Her epitaph could be, “and then I’ll hush,” as she could talk as well as she could listen, and there was always another story following on the previous one, sometimes including a “bless his heart.” Her granddaughter’s boyfriend, on meeting her and noting her wry humor, said he always felt like whatever comment she was about to add would be the funniest thing said so far in the conversation.

An episcopal service will be held at 2 pm on Friday June 5 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Shepherdstown, WV, with a coffee reception (trinityshepherdstown.org). At a future date, her ashes will be interred along with Carl’s at a burial site to be determined.

If people wish, a charity that meant a lot to Lynda was St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital