by Nancy Marlowe
A machine capable of perpetual motion has eluded science, but the next best thing is Chuck Smither, an energetic volunteer working tirelessly at three major Asheville institutions. Chuck volunteers at Mission Hospital, The Health Adventure and at All Souls. He is personable, enthusiastic and low maintenance.
At the cathedral, Chuck is one of the groundskeeping volunteers known as “Lawn Rangers.” He and his wife Sarah work behind the scenes as set-up persons for Room in the Inn and Chuck serves as a long-legged runner at Food Booth.
Chuck says it was the spiritual journey of his wife Sarah that brought them to All Souls. He was happy to jump into strenuous jobs here. “I have had more fun doing things for free than I ever did working,” he said.
Sarah and Charles Hardie “Chuck” Smither grew up in New Orleans. Both had been married before and were introduced by mutual friends appropriately named Touchstone. The first meeting “didn’t take” but they continued to encounter one another as they went about separate lives. Chuck has three sons who are living with their families in Louisiana. Sarah has a daughter who is married and teaching in Philadelphia.
Sarah taught French at Newman, “a wonderful private school” and Chuck was an educational fundraiser, first at Tulane University and then at Loyola.
Chuck Emerges as a Thin Man
New Orleans is known as “The Big Easy” but Chuck didn’t find it so salubrious. “I was hot and wet all the time, either sweating or in the rain,” he said.
Unhappy in the career his father had mapped out for him in the family insurance agency, Chuck sought solace in food and drink. His weight ballooned to 325 lbs at the end of college. “I always knew there was a thin man inside me,” said Chuck, now whip thin. “At age 35, I began to jog and I lost 117 lbs.” The thin man’s emergence inspired a news feature in New Orleans’ leading newspaper, The Times-Picayune.
And, said Sarah, Chuck was one of the trendsetters for jogging along St. Charles Avenue, now a New Orleans custom.
Sarah, in midlife, earned a master’s degree in reading “and started working with kids with reading problems. I finished out the last half of my career teaching reading.” Fluent in French, Sarah worked briefly at the Belgian Consulate in New Orleans.
Meanwhile life jogged on. And then, Chuck said, “In 1984, two of the most wonderful things happened in my life. I married Sarah and we decided to leave New Orleans. I said to her, ‘I’d love to get out of here’ and she said, ‘I think I could live in Asheville.’” Mountains were what Chuck had wanted all along.
Moving to the Mountains
So, in 1987, the Smithers moved to north Asheville and have lived happily ever after. Sarah taught remedial reading in the city schools. Chuck ended his career as development officer for The Asheville School.
Chuck says the secret of his energy is that he is a morning person and useless after 3 p.m. They awake at 4:45 each morning; Chuck brings Sarah coffee. She spends an hour or so meditating and Chuck works out on the exercise bike for 75 minutes. By then it is daylight, and the couple walks three miles.
What gives them such energy? They follow a healthy diet emphasizing vegetables and fruits, and, sometimes for Chuck, breakfast cereal for supper. A Blizzard from Dairy Queen is a favorite occasional indulgence.
The couple attends the 9 a.m. Sunday service at All Souls. In their spare time, they tend the sizeable lawn and garden of their home in Asheville’s Grove Park neighborhood.