Individual Details

Death

KANNAPOLIS - Mrs. Annie Bell Furr Scarboro, a loving wife, mother and grandmother, 87, of Five Oaks Manor, and formerly of 614 E. Universal St., Kannapolis, died Friday, Dec. 19, 2008. Funeral services for Mrs. Scarboro will be conducted at 1 p.m. Sunday at Center Grove Lutheran Church. The Rev. Loyd Ginn and the Rev. Leon Hawks will officiate. Burial will follow in the church cemetery. The family will receive friends at the church from noon until 1 p.m. prior to the service. Mrs. Scarboro was born in Cabarrus County on Feb. 25, 1921, a daughter of the late Lonnie A. Furr and Effie Barbee Furr Earnhardt Miles. She retired from Cannon Mills Company and was a member and Sunday school teacher at Center Grove Lutheran Church. Survivors include her daughter, Rosemary S. Ritchie and husband, David B. Ritchie, of Kannapolis; three grandchildren, Carl, Eric and Mark Ritchie; three great-grandchildren, Morgan, Amanda and Dillon Ritchie; and a brother, Jay Earnhardt. Lady's Funeral Home & Crematory is assisting the family of Mrs. Scarboro with arrangements.
Concord & Kannapolis Independent Tribune on 12/20/2008

CONCORD — Annie Scarboro, 87, died Dec. 19 when she fell 4 feet into a loading dock at the Five Oaks Manor Nursing Home. She was transported by emergency personnel to a local hospital at 9:50 p.m., according to a report. Scarboro arrived brain dead. State investigators have looked into circumstances surrounding the death, but Rosemary Ritchie of Kannapolis, who was Scarboro's only child, explained some of what happened in an interview with the Independent Tribune and Charlotte television station WCNC, Channel 36, last week. Ritchie said she watched as medical personnel removed the tubes from her mother's airway. Scarboro had a living will, and they had followed her wishes about life and death. Scarboro had been at Five Oaks for two years and suffered from Alzheimer's disease, but that didn't keep her from walking. She would catnap during the day and walk around at night with her walker, according to Ritchie. "She loved to walk, and was well loved at the nursing home," Ritchie said. "They let her have whole rein of the home. She'd stop at the nurse's station to visit with them, and then she would stop with the women who did the laundry. There is a pond with goldfish, and she loved them." The caregivers were good to her mother, Ritchie said. She had no complaints or bad comments about the people who helped her mother daily. She just wanted to be sure things are safe for other patients. "I put my mom there in good faith. I feel like I let her down." Ritchie remembered when she placed her Mom in the home, "She asked me if she was going to die." That question haunts Ritchie now. She wishes she could have kept her home, but her husband David suffers from some health issues, too. Ritchie said her mother got through a door in the nursing home's kitchen that did not have an alarm on it. The door led to the loading dock, from which she fell 4 feet to her death. "I put her there trusting they would keep her safe and then this happened. It's not right," Ritchie told Channel 36. Five Oaks has not talked to the media about the Scarboro's death. When contacted by the Independent Tribune last week, administrator Richard Ellickson said the nursing home was compiling details of the incident. Scarboro was a mom, sister, grandmother, great-grandmother, and a friend. She was born in Cabarrus County in 1921, the daughter of the late Lonnie A. Furr and Effie Barbee Furr Earnhardt Miles. She retired from Cannon Mills Co. and was a member and Sunday school teacher at Center Grove Lutheran Church. She had three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Ritchie's last visit with Scarboro was two weeks before her death. Ritchie had walking pneumonia and couldn't see her after that. She remembered walking and talking about usual things —telling her again her name and asking her how she felt. They walked together the whole visit. Ritchie had worried how her mom would look for the open casket funeral on Dec. 21. She dressed her mother in a blue dress, and had the right makeup on. Scarboro also wore a beautiful necklace that lay on her dress. Ritchie looked for what seemed like minutes at the last picture taken of her mom when she was healthy and said, "Mother would have been proud of the way she looked."
Concord & Kannapolis Independent Tribune, December 29, 2008