By Sara Spencer

I grew up in a split household: my Mother was an East Tennessee Republican and Dad, a southern Union County, N.C. Democrat.

They always cancelled each other’s vote and I was always taken along to the poll. They freely discussed their differences in a very civil way; I don’t remember any tension in the household.

Mother grew up Lutheran but joined my Dad in the Methodist Church: that’s what women who married in 1939 and automatically gave up their maiden names did. She remained at heart a Lutheran all her life and was still willing to participate fully in the Methodist Church.

She knew the importance of her vote and wasn’t going to let marriage change that.

By 1993, when I first ran for Charlotte City Council she was living in Charlotte and changed her registration to Democratic to vote for me in the primary.

An enthusiastic campaigner, she marched with me in the Grier Heights Labor Day Parade, and no doubt won many votes.

Sara Spencer represented District 1 on Charlotte City Council from 1993 to 2003. She is a retired teacher of music at Central Piedmont Community College, and for years was the CPCC faculty sponsor of the Charlotte Folk Society.