Ford S. Worthy, Jr.

Ford Stedman Worthy, Jr., 100, a broker, business leader, family man and master storyteller, who helped shape Raleigh’s growth over decades, died at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, NC on Saturday, November 9, 2024, surrounded by his family. Seven weeks earlier he had marked his centennial birthday at a celebratory gathering, regaling friends and family with stories of his full, fulfilling life. He was still telling stories and connecting with friends until moments before sustaining a hard fall three days before his death.

He invested a unique mix of charm, passion and curiosity in everything he did. For decades his work – as an appraiser, broker, developer and industry leader – placed him at the center of debates over how Raleigh, his adopted city, should manage its future growth. He frequently spoke out at public meetings in favor of less restrictive (or, as he liked to put it, “reasonable”) land planning and zoning policies. In 1974 he headed a task force established by the Wake County Board of Commissioners to obtain the land rights for a series of flood control dams that opened the way for vastly greater development between Cary, Morrisville and Raleigh. In 1979 he served on the committee that drafted Raleigh’s first long-range comprehensive development plan covering the next 20 years, a period that saw the city’s population double.

He was born on September 22, 1924, at his family’s home on Main Street in Washington, NC – a few blocks from the drugstore owned by his father, Ford Stedman Worthy, a pharmacist who later served for 21 years as the U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of North Carolina; Ford’s mother, Pauline Marion Worthy, was a teacher, librarian and writer who co-authored a history of Washington. In 1930, at the outset of the Great Depression, the family moved to Washington Park, where Ford grew up across the street from the Pamlico River – hunting and fishing, playing practical jokes and engaging in riverside adventures with his dogs and neighborhood friends. At 14, as a member of Troop 24, he received the Eagle Scout Badge, then and now Scouting’s highest honor. The river ran through many of the merit badges he earned and many of those boys became friends for life. Whenever he was out on the Pamlico or on Bogue Sound or off Cape Lookout – especially while captaining one of the seven “Seaworthy” boats he owned over the years – he was in his element.

After graduating from Washington High School in 1942, he enrolled at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, joining the Navy later that fall and receiving his commission from Midshipmen’s School two years later. He then shipped out to the Pacific on the oil tanker USS Lackawanna. Shortly after World War II ended, while riding in the celebratory Armistice Day parade in Washington, he was spotted for the first time by a young teenage girl, whom he married nine years later. His marriage to Isabel Carter Worthy spanned 67 years, until she died in 2021.

Ford returned to UNC after the war, enjoying the college life and the Zeta Psi fraternity and graduating in 1947. After construction and sales jobs in Beaufort County, he found his career in real estate – initially in Charlotte, as a lender at The Equitable Life Assurance Society, and then in Raleigh as a broker and right-hand man for J. Willie York, the developer of Cameron Village. In 1967 he established his own brokerage and appraisal firm, which has operated as Worthy & Wachtel for more than 50 years.

For all his public advocacy, he frequently operated behind the scenes, according to his friend, former Mayor Smedes York, who included Ford in his book, “What We Remember: Personal Recollections of Raleigh,” about leaders who shaped Raleigh in the second half of the last century. Ford was instrumental in laying the groundwork for critical community infrastructure such as when the RDU Airport Authority hired him in the early 1980s to quietly buy up hundreds of acres of land for future airport expansion, and, later, when Rex Hospital engaged him to discreetly acquire property for the hospital’s future expansion on Lake Boone Trail, without driving up land prices that the public would have to bear.

He was active with numerous industry and civic groups, including: the Raleigh Board of Realtors, which honored him as Realtor of the Year in 1979; the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce; the Urban Land Institute; the Wake County ABC Board; and the NC chapter of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers (for which he served as president). He served for many years on the vestry, as a warden, at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, where he was an active parishioner continuously from his arrival in Raleigh in 1957.

He thought of himself, foremost, as a broker: someone who brings people together. He did this outside his business life, too. Whether at his church, with his neighbors, in his many social groups or even in the checkout line at Costco, he would interrogate a new acquaintance until he learned their hometown, their career path and who their mama was. And more often than not, he would find common ground and then tell his new friend a story about their hometown, company, or grandparent that they had never heard before.

His ever-expanding circle of friends was further enlarged when, ten years ago, he and Isabel moved from their home of more than 50 years on Alamance Drive to Gardens on Glenwood. He cherished his new, funloving GOG friends, who were a valued source of support following Isabel’s death.

Alongside his deep involvement with Raleigh, he also stayed close to his native Beaufort County. In his latter years he planted thousands of live oak trees on his farm on Pungo Creek, off the Pamlico River. After these trees were well enough established, he donated dozens to churches, schools, parks, cemeteries, and municipalities in the county – where they grow today.

Finally, he cared, fiercely, for each of his nine grandchildren, lavishing them with support and guidance – whether they wanted it or not. His guidance was most often focused on getting the right education and finding the right career, but he always coaxed and inspired them to find the spark where their interests and natural gifts intersected. He viewed his children and grandchildren as the most important contribution of his life’s work. As he recently told his youngest grandson: “You are my link to eternity.”

Ford and Isabel raised four children, who survive him: Ford Stedman Worthy and wife Allison, Isabel Blount Worthy Mattox and husband Steve, Marion Carter Worthy and husband Tom Hester, and Marjorie Hoyt Worthy and husband Malcolm Lewis; along with his nine grandchildren, Alexander Stedman Worthy and wife Nealy, Sophie Spencer Worthy and significant other Cameron Adams, Isabel Spencer Mattox, William Blount Mattox, Henry Thomas Hester and wife Caitlin O'Neil, Ford Worthy Hester and fiancée Olivia Poles, Emilie Walton Lewis, Hoyt Worthy Lewis, and Clay Carter Lewis; his two step-grandchildren, Ashley Mattox Wood and husband David and their son Thomas and David’s children Ira and Evan, and James Mattox and wife Reston and their children, Powell, Emma, Turner and Miller. He is also survived by his nephews Jennings Bryan Freeman and Ford Worthy Freeman; his sister-in-law Peggy Carter Fowle; his niece Margaret Fowle and partner Scott Boulette; his nephew David Fowle, Jr. and wife Liz and their daughters Catherine Fowle O’Day and husband Tom and their daughter Kit, and Caroline George and husband Brian.

In addition to his wife Isabel, he was predeceased by his parents, his sister Marion Worthy, his nephew Paul Freeman, and his brother-in-law David Fowle.

Visitation will be held on Tuesday, November 19 from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm at the home of Carter Worthy and Tom Hester.

A memorial service will be held at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church on Wednesday, November 20 at 3:30 pm, followed by a reception at the Carolina Country Club. A private burial will take place at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, in a peaceful spot next to his wife Isabel and in the shadow of a young live oak tree that he planted after her death in 2021.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, 1520 Canterbury Road, Raleigh, NC 27608.

Brown-Wynne, 300 Saint Mary's St., Raleigh, is serving the Worthy family.