Hedy Kale Talley

Hedy Myra Kale Talley, 76, of Concord NC passed peacefully into the arms of her loving heavenly Father after a long and courageous battle with multiple heart, respiratory, and kidney complications.  

Funeral services will be held at 1pm, Thursday, March 14, 2024, at Gordon Funeral Home of Mt. Pleasant, NC, officiated by Pastor Bill Pruitt.  Burial will follow at Cabarrus Memorial Gardens in Concord, NC.  The family will receive friends from 12:00-1:00 prior to the service.

Hedy was born on April 5, 1947, the daughter of the late Roland Clinton Kale, Sr. and Ruby Blanton Kale of Gastonia NC.   Hedy was the oldest of three children (affectionately called her Daddy’s “number one door slammer”).  The Kale family moved to York, SC around 1957, where Hedy and her siblings, brother (Roland) Clinton (Jr), and sister Barbara Ann lived.  Hedy was a bright, vibrant, energetic, and fiercely independent woman.  She loved hanging out with her big family of uncles, aunts, and cousins, her grandmother Blanton, and playing cowboys and Indians (in her favorite cowgirl outfit).  She loved music all her life, played French Horn in the York High School marching band, was also a majorette, and sang at her churches (Central Baptist Church, York SC and Cold Springs Methodist Church, Concord NC), and many weddings in her lifetime.  Grateful for the legacy of faith in her family, she always said that singing made her feel closest to God.  

She married her high school sweetheart, Joe Daves, and they were blessed with a little daughter (Kelly).   After a few years, Hedy courageously divorced the husband she loved praying that one day God would heal him.   It was more than 30 years later when God brought that beautiful healing and redemption into Joe’s life and allowed for a brief visit of reconciliation with Hedy.

Hedy had a strong work ethic and enjoyed working all her life.  She worked downtown Charlotte from August 1979 through October 1999, primarily in the banking industry (NCNB, First Union) in various roles from Executive Admin (supporting Legal, Finance, Mergers & Acquisitions), Manufactured Housing, Consumer Loan and Mortgage Departments, to Employee Benefits Supervisor.   After 22 years at First Union she retired to care for her Mother and returned to work at the University of NC at Charlotte (Facilities Management Administration) in October 2000.  

She was incredibly organized and a gifted administrator and planner, skillfully balancing work and home. At her first corporate job (ITT Grinnell Corporation), she met her beloved husband (and Kelly’s “new Daddy Leon”), Leon Talley, a gentleman farmer and design engineer.    They married in September 1970 and had two beautiful twin girls, Heather Elizabeth and Myra Kale.  This young mother, born a “city girl”, moved to the countryside with Leon to raise their three girls on the Talley farm in Concord NC.  The warm welcome Hedy and Kelly received from the Talley family helped to ease her transition to country life.  She quickly became a big ‘sister-in-heart’ to Leon’s younger sister, Sue, for whom she was always willing to help and mentor with love and grace, and enjoy shopping together, sometimes getting matching outfits.

Hedy, always fashionable and stylish, was a skilled seamstress making many of her girls’ clothes, often from favorite outfits of her own, which looked professional, even “store-bought”.   She served as Cadette Girl Scout Leader at Cold Springs Church in Concord NC, helping to organize beach camping trips, tree planting, and cookie sales!  She was creative and enjoyed taking up macrame, crochet, painting, silk flower arrangement, and making decorative arrangements with items from the places close to her heart (quartz rocks, arrowheads, and pinecones from the farm, and seashells from the beach).  

She loved to travel and enjoyed traveling whenever she got the chance.  Her favorite destination firstly was to visit family in NC/SC and Kelly in PA.   She loved the beach and for many years took regular trips with friend and cousin Margaret Talley, often with her girls, Kelly, Heather & Myra, in-tow.   Through the years she continued to visit the beach as often as possible, and especially enjoyed Women’s Retreats at Long Beach Island NJ and Women’s Bible Studies, Christmas Teas, and Keith & Martha Fell’s Life Group while attending Grace Point Church in Newtown PA.  Some of her most memorable trips included Niagra Falls and New Orleans with “Miss Margaret”, visiting Kelly when she lived in Belgium and with Heather & Myra all traveling together to Paris, Rome, Belgium, and the Netherlands.  She also loved joining Kelly on occasional work trips to California and going out west to visit the Grand Canyon and driving in Arizona along Route 66.  Her eyes always lit up on the word, “Go”!

In 2006 she retired from UNCC for health reasons but remained as active as possible, continuing to enjoy spending time with family and friends, including traveling to and hosting visits and was blessed by memorable birthday celebrations for her 60^th and 70^th.   In November of 2018, complications during a routine procedure during hospitalization in Concord resulted in her nearly dying and she was placed in ICU, transferred to another hospital in Charlotte, and then to a vent facility in Virgina, where they said she would never come home, nor ever be off a ventilator.  Over the next weeks and months, each new medical development was committed to prayer by so many dear family, church family, and friends.  We saw the Lord work constantly, miraculously healing her, including fully restoring her from complete right-side paralysis following a stroke in January 2019.  She was released from there in July 2019, with no residual stroke complications, completely off the ventilator and not even requiring oxygen!  We serve a Mighty God!  

During the next few years that would be her last on earth, she told everyone she knew: family, friends, doctors, church family, and strangers, of God’s miraculously healing her and of His steadfast love and faithfulness to strengthen and sustain her throughout this time.  She spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania and served with Kelly at New Hope Philly, a ministry that disciples men who have come out of life-dominating sin and addiction.   She served actively and behind the scenes through prayer, outreach support, ladies’ ministry, and more.  As her health began to decline again over the last couple of years, she continued to trust the Lord and rely on His strength, healing, presence and peace, continuing to thank and praise Him through her last days.

Oh, how we will miss that beautiful smile, style and grace, sweetness of spirit, and sense of humor that kept us laughing!  We are eternally grateful for the priceless gifts of wisdom, experiences, and values that she taught us, for the laughter and joy we experienced in her presence, and for her strong testimony of faith, trust in the Lord, and Joy in the midst of suffering. While our hearts are heavy in mourning the loss of our beloved mother, sister, grandmother, and friend, we rejoice that she is now completely healed in Heaven, her voice fully restored to sing in the presence of Jesus her savior for eternity!  

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me [Jesus]. In my Father's house are many rooms [dwelling places]. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”  John 14:1-3 (ESV)

 Hedy is survived by her three daughters Kelly Talley of Newtown PA, Heather Talley Neyens (Joey) of Waxhaw NC, and Myra Talley of Concord NC; three grandchildren Wynn and Ben Bost of Concord NC, Elizabeth Neyens of Waxhaw; brother Dr. Roland Clinton Kale, Jr. (Marie) of Lancaster SC, former sister-in-law (and sister-in-heart) Sue Talley Richert (John) of Concord NC; uncle Charlie Kale of Gastonia NC;  two nieces, Jennifer Patterson Strickland of Bessemer City NC, Brittany Kale Black (Phil) of Charlotte NC, and one nephew Christopher Howell (Kristy) of Lincolnton NC.

IN LIEU OF FLOWERS, memorial donations may be made to New Hope Philly, PO Box 19117, Philadelphia PA 19143 (or newhopephilly.com, donate).