Johnnye Oglesby Wyke, of Wrightsville Beach, died peacefully July 12, 2014, at Duke Raleigh Hospital after a short illness. She was 78.
Mrs. Wyke was born July 31, 1935, in Kingsport, Tenn. and spent her childhood living in Tennessee and Orland Park, Ill. She finished high school in Kingsport, Tenn. and attended what was then the Women’s College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in education in 1957.
She married Gene L. Wyke and the couple settled in Greensboro where Mrs. Wyke became a homemaker and raised their son, John. Mr. Wyke’s position with Southern Bell Telephone Co. relocated the family to Wrightsville Beach in the 1960s where their daughter, Holli, was born and died in infancy.
After a brief assignment at AT&T corporate headquarters in New York City, the family returned to North Carolina where they made their principle residence in Charlotte before eventually retiring to Wrightsville Beach in the mid-1980s.
Mrs. Wyke became heavily involved in the support groups Touched by Suicide and Compassionate Friends after the death of her son, John. She especially found fulfillment working with these groups to assist parents of deceased children with the grieving process.
She was preceded in death by her husband of 57 years, Gene L. Wyke and their children, John and Holli Wyke.
She is survived by her brothers, Albert Loebe, of Roswell, Ga. and Frank Oglesby, of Kingsport, Tenn. and sister, Ella O’Neill, of Phoenix, Ariz.
A gathering of family and friends will be held from 11 a.m. noon Thursday, July 17, 2014, at Coble-Ward Smith Funeral Home, 3915 Oleander Drive Wilmington, NC 28403, with a memorial service to follow at noon.
Please leave online condolences for the family at Coble-Ward Smith.
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