The front porch was Ray Tolley’s happy place.

Ray enjoyed sitting on his front porch in the Fairview Community of Simerly Creek, chewing his tobacco, and waving at friends as they passed.

These days, the spring sun splatters across the front porch of the Tolley home, but Pappy Tolley’s chair is empty. Pappy died May 8 at the age of 97.

The Fairview Community was always home to Ray Tolley. He grew up in the community, one of 11 children born to Eli and Minnie Byrd Tolley. He continued to make the Fairview Community his home after he married the love of his life, Josephine Bise. They were married 66 years before she passed away in 2015. They had one son, David, who blessed them with four grandchildren. He also had several great grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.

“He was really lost when Mom passed. He loved her dearly. She had been there for him all those years, and it was hard for him,” said David.

A hard worker, Ray retired from the Carter County Highway Department, where he drove a truck. “He pushed snow in the winter and hauled rock in the summer,” said David. “He worked many years at the highway department, beginning there when J.W. Street was road superintendent. He was a very dedicated employee. Dad rarely missed a day’s work.”

Ray enjoyed gardening. He and Josephine always grew a vegetable garden in the summer. “Gardening was about the only hobby he had and he grew some good gardens,” said David.

“For the most part, he was a quiet person. He was a good storyteller and enjoyed reminiscing about days gone by and people who lived a generation before him. Dad had a good memory and kept it until about six months before he died,” said David.

He spent the last few months of his life in the nursing home. Before that, David, who lived next door to his father, spent nights with him and saw to his meal needs. “His eating was simple. He liked vegetables and especially enjoyed fish,” said his son.

Although he was not active in politics except to vote, Ray was a strong Republican.

Ray Tolley was just a simple man, who worked hard, loved his family, had a God-fearing faith, and tended to his own business. His favorite attire was overalls and you rarely seen him without his baseball-style cap.

He wasn’t an ardent church-goer, but was a God-fearing man, who believed in doing the right thing and being a friend to all around him.

However, his favorite thing to do was to sit on the front porch, chew his Durango tobacco, and watch the world go by.

As someone wrote: “True luxury is being able to own your time, to be able to take a walk, sit on your porch, read the paper, not take the call, not be compelled by obligation.” That was Ray Tolley in his retirement years.

Ray was laid to rest a few days ago in a plot by his wife in the Tolley Cemetery in the Fairview Community, home to a man, who never ventured far from it.