Sitting in her large yard on Hillsborough street in Carrboro on a sunny summer morning in late August, Frances Lloyd Shetley was showing off her fern garden.
“This is a tassel fern, here,” she said, pointing to a large, potted fern on the patio. “And I have a great big one over here that I look at most every day that I enjoy.”
There may be nobody with deeper roots in Carrboro than Shetley.
“I moved to Carrboro when I was about 28 years-old,” she said. “So, I’m 95 now. I’ve seen a lot of changes.”
It should be noted that when she moved to Carrboro, it was from Calvandar — just about two miles north of her yard with the ferns. She is also a ninth generation descendant of Thomas Lloyd, one of the original settlers of South Orange County and a well-known colonial official of the 1700s.
But it is on her own laurels as a community activist and former member of the Board of Aldermen that Shetley is most well-known.
“Well, I have a lot of things to be proud of,” she described. “So many things.”
Her numerous accomplishments for Carrboro include founding the garden club.
“About 35 years ago I got together with several friends and formed a garden club!” she recalled. “It has been a real asset to all of us because we’ve just enjoyed talking about flowers and trading plants and just having such a good time.”
She also played a key role in helping save the Carr Mill Mall building.
“A long time ago, maybe 1973, 1975 — I had a fellow from the Souther Historical Society call me and say did you know they are going to tear it down? So I called several people and said did you know that they are going to tear down the mill? And somebody said why don’t we get up a petition to prevent that? And I said, ‘well, great idea, you do it!’ And he did.
“So many people around Carrboro signed it,” said Shetley. “I heard Mrs. Ida Friday signed it. And she carried it to the owner. He looked at it and said, ‘Carrboro people don’t want this torn down…okay I’ll just sell it.’ And it became Carr Mill.”
And Shetley was such an active champion of bike and bus transportation that they named a bike path after her when she retired.
“That was not my doing,” she maintained. “I was on the Carrboro Board and Transportation Advisory Committee, but I had no idea that they were going to do that.”
This service and recognintion all culminated on August 20, when Shetley was awarded the Order of the Longleaf Pine in a special ceremony held at the Frances Shetley Bikeway. Shetley described the ceremony as “a complete surprise to me.” The Order of the Long Leaf Pine is the highest honor the governor of North Carolina can bestow on a citizen. It is reserved for those who have a proven record of extraordinary service to the state and contributions to their communities.
“I have to thank [Orange County state Rep.] Graig Meyer for doing all this work,” said Shetley. “And I had a lot of letters from friends who wrote in nice things about me. It was just so nice to get all of that recognition.”
When asked what she was proud of in her influence on the Carrboro Community, she thought for a moment and then said, “Would you like to hear a story?”
“It goes back to about 1980,” Shetley said. “One morning I had a call from somebody. And she said, ‘did you know that they are going to build a big development in Carrboro that is going to just be a disaster for our watershed?’ And I said, I know somebody who can tell me about this. And so I called Allen Spalt. He was a person who as all up to date on conservation and so on. I told him what little I knew about it, and he said that is going to be a disaster for our water supply.”
Alan Spalt is a longtime Carrboro resident and former Alderman. He remembers, “We were talking about the University Lake Watershed. It encompasses Anderson Park.”
“He took up the cause and got people together and friends that knew about water and runoff and so on,” Shetley continued, “And they went to all the board meetings and public hearings, and fought.”
“Frances is very generous in giving me a lot of credit,” Spalt said. “And I was in fact instrumental in defeating the development in the watershed in the 80s to protect our water. But I worked with a lot of other volunteers, and an attorney to sue the town.”
“And it just became a real wonderful thing for Carrboro.” Shetley concluded.
Spalt says this story exemplifies what makes Shetley such an effective leader. “She could influence people, and they didn’t even know they were being influenced part of the time. And she didn’t care if she got any of the credit at all.”
And that subtle leadership style helped shape Carrboro into the town it is today.
“Well I appreciate all of the things people have done for Carrboro. I’ve been here such a long time and seen so many changes,” Shetley said. “People come to Carrboro now and they enjoy it, don’t they?”
Editorial Note: Allen Spalt is the father-in-law of the author of this article.
Photo via Damon Seils/Twitter.
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