Melrose Amburn Rhyne, a Mount Airy native who spent 58 years married to a North Carolina State Highway Patrol trooper and decades working as a bookkeeper in Florida, died on November 2 in Boiling Springs, South Carolina. She was 94.
Rhyne was born on May 10, 1932, in Mount Airy, North Carolina, according to an obituary published by Heritage Funeral Services. In 1952 she married North Carolina State Highway Patrol Trooper James P. Rhyne, Jr., beginning a marriage that lasted 58 years until his death in 2010, the obituary states.
The couple eventually settled in Florida, where Rhyne built a long career in public service away from the patrol car her husband drove. She worked as a bookkeeper for the Brevard County Clerk of Court until 1983, per the obituary.
A Legacy Spanning Generations
Rhyne is remembered in the obituary for the family she leaves behind, including five granddaughters: Lorie (Rhyne) Leal, Ashley (Rhyne) Miller, Nicole (Worner) Carmenates, Crystal (Worner) Walsh, and Emily (Zayatz) Collins. The obituary also notes five great-grandchildren among her survivors.
News of her death was first compiled in a listing by the Graham Star, a Robbinsville, North Carolina newspaper that serves readers throughout the surrounding area.
Services Planned in Mount Airy
A graveside service for Rhyne is scheduled for this Saturday, November 7, at 2 p.m. at Ladonia Baptist Church Cemetery, located at 163 Raven Knob Road in Mount Airy, the obituary says. Visitation will follow in the church Fellowship Hall, bringing Rhyne's final arrangements back to the town where she was born more than nine decades earlier.
In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that memorial donations be made to the Masonic-Eastern Star Home and Orphanage, according to the obituary.
