Chamber of Commerce honors funeral home director Susie Weaver

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce will induct six business leaders and families into its Hall of Fame on Thursday. The Daily Tar Heel will feature each of its inductees. Susie Weaver will be among those inducted.

For many in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community, Susie Weaver was known as one of the happiest people on earth — and one who helped bring friends to the Happiest Place on Earth.

Weaver, who died in 1984, was the assistant director for the Chapel Hill Funeral Home and Ambulance Service at 113 N. Graham St., now named Knotts Funeral Home. She worked alongside her husband, Bynum Weaver, who owned the business.

As a beautician, Weaver was also the business’ hairstylist. She was an ordained minister and often served as a musical soloist at funerals.

Outside of the funeral business, Susie Weaver was also the director of the Weaver Gospel Singers, a religious choir that traveled to churches, prisons, hospitals and nursing homes.

“My mother spent most of her time preaching at churches, traveling and singing and working at the funeral home with my dad at that time — working at the funeral home all the time after my father passed away and until her death,” said Wanda Weaver, the daughter of Susie Weaver.

Keith Edwards, one of Susie Weaver’s friends, said the choir also went to the WSRC radio station in Durham every Sunday.

“In the program, she would talk about community issues, and they would sing several songs,” Edwards said.

“That was the way that community people could get information on what was happening in the black community.”

Edwards said Susie Weaver went to a nursing program and provided needed services to the community.

“We needed someone like her,” Edwards said.

Susie Weaver also took community members out to retreats on the choir’s bus.

“The closest would be the Pullen Park in Raleigh,” Wanda Weaver said. “Then she would go far as Virginia and would also go to Six Flags of Georgia, and they would go as far as Disney World.”

Wanda Weaver said her mother took these long-distance trips annually.

“She would do that at a very low economic cost so people could do these things,” Wanda Weaver said. “The expense on the gas and the hotel rooms — that’s all she charged.”

Susie Weaver was involved in civil rights issues in Chapel Hill, said Fred Battle, Bynum Weaver’s nephew-in-law.

“She was a community activist, and she was involved in education and civil rights issues,” Battle said, who was also involved in the civil rights movement.

“She was involved in the civil rights movements in Chapel Hill. She was one of the leaders. We had a movement in Chapel Hill in the ’60s, and we marched and protested for civil rights.”

Wanda Weaver said that, even as an adult, she could still talk to Susie Weaver about anything and that she was always there for her.

“She was very lovely, very nurturing, and she was very funny,” Wanda Weaver said. “She would have fun with my friends and I.”

Wanda Weaver said her mother extended this compassion and hospitality to all members of their community.

“She would open her door for people to come and stay when they needed that,” she said. “She would go out and took people that may not have transportation in the rural area.”

Edwards said Susie Weaver was always happy.

“No one was ever a stranger to her,” she said. “We could see that she loved people. Loving and caring person, did everything she could for you through her death — that’s the way she was.”

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