Tommie Foscue Arnold

11/25/42-10/12/21

Tommie Foscue Arnold passed away October 12, 2021 at Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital after a brief illness. Born November 25, 1942, in Lenoir County, NC, she was the only child of Tom Hyman Foscue and Fannie Roberts Foscue.

Tommie was passionate about her extended family and served as the family historian. She traveled frequently between Greensboro and Coastal North Carolina to visit and share stories with her mother and other relatives. She also created family around her by including family and friends for holiday celebrations – often with many recipe traditions from the coastal region.

Following high school, she attended Greensboro College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English. There she developed life long friendships with many college friends including a group of women nicknamed, “The Sassies.”

Following her college graduation in 1964 she taught high school and then began a successful banking career starting at Wachovia in Greensboro. She went on to work at 1st Home Federal which was acquired by BB&T during the S&L crisis of the 90’s where she was manager for their Winston-Salem branch and from where she eventually retired as Vice President of the bank. There was an employee tradition of trying to get $2 bills with successive serial numbers which explains the $2 bills found throughout her apartment after her death.

Later, Tommie pursued her lifetime passion of caring and compassion for others and completed her Clinical Pastoral Education and worked as a part time chaplain on call overnight in the emergency department at Moses Cone Hospital for about 10 years. She was exceptionally gifted in building relationships and being emotionally and spiritually present with people and she won the respect of the ED staff.

She met and married her husband George in 1967. They resided their entire marriage of 47 years in Greensboro where they both were very active in the community with a focus on social justice issues and church activities. Tommie and George were members of First Lutheran Church where she served through First Lutheran’s Community Ministry efforts. She also served on one of the pastoral call committees. Recently she maintained associate membership while becoming an active member of Congregational United Church of Christ.

She served on the Board of Directors of Greensboro Urban Ministry and National Committee for the New River.

She and George traveled extensively in Mexico and Europe. They also traveled to many family reunions with cousins and she continued to do so following George’s death in 2015. She sold her long time residence after his death and moved to a downtown high-rise apartment where she took advantage of being close to restaurants and other downtown activities. She considered herself a “political junkie” and looked forward to reading the New York Times every day along with her many other magazine subscriptions. She visited Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter’s Sunday school class in Plains, Georgia, and scratched her political itch every 4 years when she attended several Iowa caucuses.

She was predeceased by her husband, George and her parents. She is survived by many cousins and special friends.

Funeral services will be held at 2:00 on December 4 at Congregational United Church of Christ, Greensboro. A small interment will be held prior at 12:30 at First Lutheran Church.

Gifts to honor Tommie's memory may be made to Greensboro College. Congregational United Church of Christ, First Lutheran Church and Interactive Resource Center.