In Memory

Ralph Schofield

Ralph Schofield

Mr. Ralph Carlton Schofield, age 78, of Raleigh, departed this life on Thursday, January 27, 2022 at Raleigh Health and Rehab., Wade Avenue, Raleigh.

The family will conduct a private memorial in the days to come.    

Survivors; brothers, John Charles Schofield of Richmond, VA and a host of other relatives and friends.  

https://www.stevenlyonsfuneralhome.com/obituary/MrRalphCarlton-Schofield



 
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02/04/22 10:13 AM #1    

Frederick H. Fisher

Of the rewards of attending Broughton was it's large student body, of course the downside was only knowing a few classmates and then mostly superficially. I knew Ralph for a short while but regret not establishing a long term friendship. Mostly remember visiting his house off Oberlin Rd. where a group of friends would admire his mothers's large Buick sedan that he would swipe and ride us around Cameron Village.  Thanks Ralph and may the Muses be with you. 


02/04/22 01:51 PM #2    

Charles Styron

I don’t remember ever hearing Ralph utter a harsh or unkind word, and I don’t think that he ever "cussed;" at least, I don’t remember that he did, and cussing was almost ubiquitous among the crowd with which I ran. Everybody whom I knew called Ralph “Scofield”—or more often than not, just “Sco.” There was a brief period during our tenure at Broughton during which Ralph and I spend a little time together. My memory is extremely sketchy, but I think that it must have been when I was on the football team in our Junior Year, and Ralph was the manager. (The details here may be wrong, but they “feel” right, so the situation was at least analogous to this.) Whatever the case, none of our association had anything to do with football. Ralph had a rather unique role among a number of his classmates as a kind of ‘social power broker.’ I don’t remember that he ever actually brokered anything in particular, and he never exercised any overt power. He served, however, as a forum for others, and without him, these small gatherings would not have happened. Although he had few strong opinions of his own—I don’t remember hearing them anyway—he had endless patience and space for the opinions of others. He had a good measure of what Keats called “negative capability”—the capacity to countenance all kinds of ideas without being swayed particularly one way or another by them—a quality that we might like in a judge. Groups of us would sometimes meet at his house after school on the triangular corner of Park Drive and Oberlin Road and have great “planning sessions” of one kind or another. Nothing concrete was ever planned of course; we were all just extemporizing about our errant thoughts of the moment, and simply stating them was all that was required. These events could be fairly rowdy. Nothing ever came of any of it, however, except that we all went away feeling a little better—which is actually quite something after all. I could still use one of these gatherings every now and then on the occasional afternoon. At our ages, there are many plans that only have to be spoken in order to feel as though they have become realized anyway. What do you say, “Sco?” 

HAIL RALPH SCHOFIELD HAIL


02/05/22 09:55 AM #3    

William Stroupe

Going all the way back to our days at Wiley, I will always remember Ralph as a gentle soul who never had a cross word for anyone else, nor did I ever hear anyone disparage Ralph. His passing is our loss.


02/05/22 10:37 AM #4    

James D. (Cappie) Gower

As we have read from our classmates, I knew Ralph to always be easy going and never heard so much as a "dam" from him.

Does anyone remember  while we were at Daniels,a field trip to the old National Bank downtown that Ralph organized through his Dad? 

Although we did not run in the same circles I did have a chance to reconnect with him after graduation and with his encouragement joined the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and went on several missions with Ralph to help locate downed aircraft. Our base was at the old Raleigh Municipal Airport on S. Sanders St.

After our stint in the CAP I lost contact and always wondered what his next adventure was going to be. I see he was a veteran and thank him for his service and sacrifice.

RIP Ralph, see you again one day.

Jim Gower

 

 

 


03/05/22 04:58 AM #5    

Betty Gaither (Halter)

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