Mary Clayton Wyche Mintz, 106, died on March 4, 2025, after a brief illness at her family home in Hallsboro. She was born in that same home on May 11, 1918. She was the eldest child of the late James Avery Wyche and Olive McBryde Clark Wyche.
She graduated from Hallsboro School in 1934 and from Meredith College in 1938 where she began at age sixteen and majored in Latin while also studying history and English. She earned a master’s degree in US history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1941. She wrote her master’s thesis under the direction of Dr. Hugh T. Lefler, a leading North Carolina historian, on “The Tory War in North Carolina.” She engaged in further graduate study at Columbia University; at Clemson University; in a university program in Saltillo, Mexico; and at the University of Birmingham (England) program on Shakespeare near Stratford-upon-Avon.
“Miss Wyche” and then “Mrs. Mintz,” as she was fondly known by generations of students, had a long teaching career which spanned nearly sixty years. After teaching at Chadbourn, Hamlet, High Point, and New Hanover High School in Wilmington, she taught English for twenty-five years at Hallsboro High School. In “retirement” she served as an English instructor at Southeastern Community College until she was aged eighty.
In 1980 the North Carolina English Teachers Association named Mrs. Mintz as English Teacher of the Year for the entire state. She had previously served as president of the association and chaired the committee that produced the first literary map of North Carolina in 1950. In 1981 the North Carolina Folklore Society honored Mrs. Mintz with their annual statewide Brown-Hudson Folklore Award, for the preservation of local knowledge in Kin’lin’, a magazine she founded at Hallsboro High School to help preserve the heritage of her area of Columbus County.
Mrs. Mintz often held leadership roles in her community. She served as president of the board of the Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum for two terms. From its founding through 2023, she was a judge for the A.R. Ammons Student Poetry Contest. She was Regent and Registrar for the Major General Robert Howe chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The Columbus County Genealogical Society grew out one of her courses at Southeastern. For many years she also served as the Program Chair for the Brunswick County Historical Society. She was a popular and regular presenter at the Lake Waccamaw Book Club.
Mrs. Mintz was a lifelong member of the Lake Waccamaw Presbyterian Church where she participated in the women’s circles for more fifty years and provided leadership for the morning circle for more than a decade. She was also active in the Coastal Carolina Presbytery where she served first as historian and then as recording secretary. The Lake Waccamaw Presbyterian Church arranged to recognize her service to their church and to the presbytery when they received permission to present her with an honorary life membership in Presbyterian Women.
Mrs. Mintz was predeceased by her husband of thirty-eight years, Harry Luther Mintz, Jr., and her oldest child, Graham Wyche Mintz (Cheryl); five brothers, Graham, Paul, Cyril, Neil, and Brett; and one sister, Amy. She is survived by her daughter, Mary McBryde Mintz (James Phillip May); her son, Henry Luther Mintz; two grandchildren, Robert Henry Mintz and Mary Rebekah Mintz; and by many beloved Wyche and Mintz nieces and nephews and their children. Due to limited seating capacity at Lake Waccamaw Presbyterian Church, the memorial service at 2:00 pm on Saturday, March 8, 2025, will be for relatives, church members, and close friends. Everyone, especially her students, will be welcomed at the visitation to be held from 6:00 – 8:00 pm on March 7, 2025 at McKenzie Mortuary located at 112 Jefferson Street in Whiteville, North Carolina.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Women of Lake Waccamaw Presbyterian Church for their community outreach services at 301 Church Street, Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina, 28450 or to the Southeastern Community College Foundation, PO Box 151, Whiteville NC 28472.
McKenzie Mortuary, 112 Jefferson Street, Whiteville, NC is serving the Mintz family.
