Honoring Asheville’s Living Treasures

Our Living Treasures still have a passion for life and continue to stay active. This shot captures the three engaged in conversation about their pet projects. Sara’s (standing, center) is quilting, Dr. Wilson’s (right) passion is gardening, and Matthew Bacoate (left), enjoys community engagements and golfing.  Photo: Urban News

Staff Reports

The Asheville Living Treasures program has announced the Spring, 2012 living treasures: Matthew Bacoate Jr., Sara Hill, and Dr. John Wilson. Their biographies and oral histories will join those of previous laureates housed in the Special Collections Department of Ramsey Library at UNC Asheville. The three honorees will be formally recognized May 20, 2012 in a public ceremony at from 1-3 p.m. at the First Congregational United Church of Christ on Woodfin Street in Asheville.

Asheville Living Treasures was established in 2010 to honor elders of Asheville and Buncombe County who have devoted their lives to making our community a better place to live. The volunteer program is led by Carol Anders along with founding members Carmen Ramos Kennedy, Donna Schutt, and Marnie Walsh For more information visit our website at ashevillelivingtreasures.com .

Matthew Bacoate Jr. (born February 10, 1930) was a founder, manager,
and eventual owner of the largest African American owned business in
Asheville history, originally known as AFRAM Inc., then ACE, and finally
M.B. Disposables. A Board volunteer for Mountain Housing Opportunities,
Bacoate is also a Korean War Veteran, community activist, and a builder
of economic development projects and of interracial relationships in
Asheville and across the state.

He is a talking textbook of
Asheville’s history, and over the years he has been featured in an ABC
news documentary, received awards from the City of Asheville and the
State of North Carolina, and served as a volunteer and resource for
governors and presidents. His leadership and community service
throughout his life have improved the quality of life for all residents.
(More details of his admirable life are included in this issue on page
4.)

Sara Hill is a retired social worker, a teacher, mentor,
community servant, avid reader, tradition bearer, and quilter
extraordinaire. Sara spent her career in the Midwest, working as a
social worker and serving as chief director of the children’s division
at the internationally renowned Menninger Clinic in Kansas.

Born
in Fayetteville, she and her family had ties to Montreat, and when she
retired she moved to Asheville, where she continued to work part-time as
a social worker and family therapist at Trend Mental Health. Here she
also began to apply her passion for quilting to community service. As a
member and past president of the Asheville Quilt Guild she has
spearheaded efforts to assist individuals and organizations with
donations of Community Quilts.

As a teacher Sara Hill engages
children, adults and the elderly within her outreach, acting as a mentor
of quilting instruction in a variety of venues. Sara is also a teacher
at A-B Tech Community College and in 2006 was recognized as the A-B Tech
College Forum’s first Continuing Education Instructor of the Year. She
now resides in the Highland Farms community in Black Mountain and can
often be found assisting her neighbors.

Sara Hill is a
tradition-bearer giving strength to our community and cultural heritage.
The vitality of North Carolina quilt-making will be in good hands for
the future, for it has been threaded by the stitches of Sara Hill’s
passion and devoted service to others.

Dr. John Wilson has served
not only Buncombe County but the international community as well, as a
physician, pediatrician, medical missionary, WWII soldier and veteran,
educator, humanitarian, volunteer, master gardener, and woodworker. He
was born in Kwangju, Korea, where his parents served as Presbyterian
missionaries. That service linked his family to the Montreat area, where
he would eventually meet his wife, Nancy.

After graduation from
the Pyengyang Foreign School in Korea, he returned to the U.S. for
further education at Davidson College and Jefferson Medical School in
Philadelphia. His residency was interrupted by WWII, when he was called
back to Korea for service in the Army. General Mac Arthur had
commissioned John’s father to take charge of all the leprosy hospitals
in Korea, and John’s orders took him back to serve in Korea under his
father’s command.

Dr. Wilson began his medical career in
Greensboro, and after practicing in other states and in Korea, he
returned to Black Mountain, NC. He has been a public servant in the
field of medicine and donated his service to humanitarian efforts at
refugee camps around the world. With a lifelong passion for gardening,
Dr. Wilson cultivated an idea for a community garden for the Town of
Black Mountain in the 1980s. With his vision, guidance and hard work,
the idea became a reality, and in the Town of Black Mountain officially
renamed the garden in honor of Dr. Wilson’s enormous contributions for
the benefit of individuals, families, the community, food pantries and
area agencies.

John will be celebrating his 96th birthday this
May. He still has a passion for life, sharing his wonderful stories and
imparting his wisdom to others. His life has been a bountiful garden,
sowing seeds of knowledge, nurturing people of the world while
cultivating a legacy of service to others.