Charlotte Ruth Meredith passed away on September 26, 2025, in Jefferson City, Tennessee, four days after her 97th birthday. A longtime resident of Cullman, Alabama, she moved to Jefferson City in August 2024 to live near her son Jeff and his wife Tracy. She was the last surviving Causey sibling, outliving Matteline (Mattsie), John, Bill, and J. Carl.
Charlotte was born in Hadley, Kentucky, a small community outside of Bowling Green, on September 22, 1928, to Mable and E.B. Causey. After graduating from Western Kentucky College High School, Bowling Green, in 1946, she obtained her nursing degree in Nashville at the St. Thomas Hospital School of Nursing and completed it at Nashville General Hospital. She served as a nurse in San Diego, California; Bowling Green, Kentucky; and Vestavia, Alabama. A passionate volunteer, she also employed her nursing skills for handicapped children for many summers at Camp Sumatanga in St. Clair County, Alabama.
Charlotte married William (Bill) Rhea Meredith Jr. on June 8, 1950, the year Bill graduated from the University of Kentucky. They moved to San Diego in November of that year while he served once again in the Navy, this time in Inceon, Korea, and Okinawa, Japan. They were married for fifty-nine years until his passing in 2009. Bill worked in administrative positions for AT&T and South Central Bell, which necessitated many moves over their lives to Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina; Summit and Berkeley Heights, New Jersey; Vestavia, Alabama; and Lousiville, Kentucky.
Charlotte and Bill raised five children (Nancy, William, Jennifer, John, and Jeff) and three foster children (Bobby Wallace, Amy Grob, and Annie Sexton). Their daughter Jennifer passed away at the age of eight months in 1956, and their daughter Nancy at the age of twenty-four in 1977. Possessed of a great sense of humor and warm heart, Charlotte was also beloved by her children’s friends. Charlotte was a gifted seamstress and once made her husband a suit (a complex task she vowed never to repeat), the children inventive Halloween costumes, and outfits for her daughters. She took special joy in her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A devout Christian, Charlotte was a member of Methodist churches her entire life. She loved to sing and joined her church choirs for as long as she could sing. Following the directions of Jesus, Charlotte believed passionately in taking care of others, and nursed her sister Mattsie, father E.B., and Aunt Ray during their final years in Cullman. Her idea of family was expansive, embracing hundreds of friends and their children.
Charlotte was renowned for her cooking, a skill that she developed as a child while helping her mother cook for the hired hands employed for farming help. Her biscuits were a particular joy of her children and grandchildren, and she passed on that skill to many of them. She was also beloved for her beef brisket, chocolate pie, squash casserole, jam cake, and many other dishes. Her brisket was featured on the cover of the 2006 Taste of Cullman cookbook published by the Cullman Times. To pass along her children’s favorite recipes, she made each one a book of their favorite recipes illustrated by photographs of their childhoods.
Green-thumb Charlotte was a passionate gardener and lover of house plants, as everyone knew who was fortunate to visit her homes over the years. She decorated those homes with beautiful antiques, several of which she had refinished, and always had a beautiful dining table set for dinner parties. Her long life can be summed up as one devoted to family, friends, and the teachings of Jesus, sharing her love and friendship, cooking, and deep sense of the importance of community.
A memorial service will be held at St. Andrew’s Global Methodist Church, 615 Main Ave. SW, Cullman, Alabama on Saturday, November 1 at 11 a.m. Charlotte’s remains will be interred next to her beloved husband and two daughters at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens, 1940 Scottsville Road, Bowling Green, Kentucky on Sunday, November 2, at 2 p.m.
Donations made be made in her name to the Meredith Endowment at the American Beethoven Society (One Washington Square, San Jose CA, 95192-0171) and the Committee on Church Cooperation (708 9th Street SE, Cullman, Alabama, 35055).
