The last house I visited when leaving Moore County, North Carolina, in 2018, was Roy S. Thompson’s house in the Town of Aberdeen.
Opal, Roy’s wife, answered the door— Roy was watching “Gunsmoke” was on ME TV. I sent cards after that morning visit or talked to Roy by phone.
I met Roy after joining JPS Carpet’s product development department in Aberdeen in April 1989. My wife, Carol, and our girls (Janelle and Suzanne) moved with me from Kernersville, NC, to a house we bought in Southern Pines.
I started out in 1974 as one of nine designers at Bigelow Carpet, Greenville, SC, a carpet manufacturer. I worked there 14 years and then Karastan Carpet (Eden, NC) bought Bigelow, and my family and I moved to Kernersville, N.C. Then I hired as a color designer with JPS Carpet (known as Stevens Carpet, later called JPS Carpet, and in 1995 renamed Gulistan). (Three towns form a triangle in the Sandhills of Moore County, N.C.: Southern Pines, Aberdeen, and Pinehurst. In 2018, there were 42 golf courses in Moore County.)
Roy, eight years my senior, worked as lead technician in our Gulistan pilot plant that housed miniature machines of most of the production machines standing in our “tufting” plant. That production plant sat across an employee parking lot from the product development pilot plant. Our job was to design new products for Gulistan.
Roy worked for Stevens when weaving was popular, but the “tufting method” largely took over residential carpet products. Sources say, “The tufting method creates carpet by using a high-speed machine with hundreds of needles to push yarn through a primary backing material, forming loops that can be left as-is for a loop pile or cut to create a cut pile. This process … allows for a variety of textures and styles. After tufting, a latex adhesive is applied to the back, and a secondary backing is added for stability and to lock the yarn in place.”
When I arrived in 1989, Roy worked for Brady Grubbs and Charlie Kennedy who were under John Weller, our VP of Product Development. Other employees in our department included Dale Meacham, Jerry Holt, Arnold Seawell, Joe Kimball, Dilline Shanon, Robert Jackson, Bruce Douglas, and Ralph Houghton.
Our pilot plant contained offices and produced sample (30-inch by 36-inch or so) prototypes of possible new products. If the company wished to introduce a product, then a selected sample was reproduced in 12-foot-wide carpets. Roy worked at making samples.
Roy was a tall (6ft-1inch or so) slender, quiet fellow with graying hair. At our first meeting, I noticed “Shirley” tattooed on one of his upper arms. I met his wife and when he introduced her as his “wife” and not by her name, I said, “Glad to meet you, Shirley.” She said her name was “Opal” and made no comment about “Shirley,” but a slight red tinge colored Roy’s face. He later explained the “Shirley” tattoo was done early in life. He served in Germany with the U.S. Army. On Nov. 22, 1963, when headed home from Germany by ship, Roy heard that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.
“We thought we might have to return to Germany because the President had been shot,” Roy said. “But we didn’t.”
Over the years at our company, Roy worked steadily, often staying late to accommodate Charlie Kennedy, who was full of product ideas and rose to be Gulistan’s president. I can’t remember when Roy retired from Gulistan, but we missed him.
Finally, I retired in Jan. 2013, within two months of being age 66 because I was “let go” as the company went bankrupt. A press release stated, “Gulistan, headquartered in Aberdeen, N.C., and with plants in Turnersburg and Wagram, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed its N.C. facilities in 2013, leading to the loss of about 395 jobs.”
In 2017, my wife, who had suffered from pulmonary hypertension since 2013, felt we should move back to the Greenville, S.C., area. We bought a house in Taylors, S.C. In 2018, I returned to Southern Pines to assure painting was done on our NC house before we sold it. I left our house for the last time and stopped by Roy’s on the way out of town.
In phone conversations, I learned Roy’s son, Gregory Thompson, a military veteran of Iraq, died.
Roy went three times a week for kidney dialysis. He no longer drove but rode by medical transport to FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital—Pinehurst. He said his wife, Opal, was experiencing dementia. A few times he asked me to talk with her on the phone. I wondered if he did so to let me know the progression of her condition. She asked Roy for answers if I asked anything in detail. Roy said she didn’t cook because she couldn’t recall recipes. Kidney dialysis drained Roy. He said he was very tired after each dialysis he endured. He told me was trusting Jesus.
One day I called Roy and Opal answered. She said Roy, 84, born Oct. 18, 1938, had died.
“He came back from dialysis and was sitting in a chair, and he just fell over,” Opal said. “We’ve all got to go sometime.”
Opal’s niece was at the residence, and I spoke with her. She said her family were going to look after Opal, she said. I called later, and the house phone had been disconnected. I miss Roy and Opal’s friendship.
Roy’s obituary: “Roy S. Thompson, 84, of Aberdeen passed away on Wednesday, August 30, 2023.
“Roy was preceded in death by his parents Andrew and Alma Thompson; sisters Gladys Parker and Ann Williams; brother Lewis Thompson; and a son, Gregory Thompson. He leaves behind a wife Opal Thompson; two grandchildren, Drew (Dylan) and Meagan Thompson; two beautiful great granddaughters, Caroline and Rose.”
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