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A little more than a week ago, relatives, friends and Sedalia residents said goodbye to the town's oldest native, Claude L. Totton.

Totton, 89, passed away Aug. 26 at Wesley Long Community Hospital.

Totton's mother, Zula Clapp Totton, was the first graduate of the Palmer Memorial Institute.

Attending Palmer was a family tradition, as he and all his siblings and later his daughter, Claudia, attended the school.

The family had recently learned that he had lung cancer.

"He wasn't feeling good for about two years," his wife Ruth said. "He thought it was a bad cold."

Ruth Totton doesn't believe that the illness was too far gone to treat, but she said his persistent cough wore his body down.

"I don't want to dwell on the illness," Rush Totton said. "He didn't suffer; he just went to sleep."

She, family and friends prefer to remember him in happy times.

"Just talking with Mr. Totton will give you fond memories, " said Barbara Gibson-Wiley, a historic interpreter at the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum. She had known Totton her whole life.

"He always had a smile on his face -- he was never down," she said. "The thing I'll miss most is going down (U.S.) 70 seeing him on his tractor, smiling and waving."

Totton will likely be remembered by many for his blue Ford tractor. He plowed gardens and even helped pull cars out of ditches.

"He would go and help everybody," Ruth Totton said.

Although he was a good friend and mentor to many, for planning board member Jeremy Barksdale he was simply "Papa."

"He gave (us) gentle guidance," Barksdale said.

The Tottons helped to raise Barksdale and his brother, J.J.

Barksdale says that he learned a lot of life lessons from his grandfather.

"We talked a lot while we were out there riding on that tractor," Barksdale said.

Totton was a husband, father, grandfather, World War II veteran, N.C. A&T alumnus, farmer and member of Bethany Community Church.

He is also the last surviving member of the Riley Totton family of 12 children.

Claude and Ruth Totten met on the Palmer Memorial Institute campus while she was a teacher there.

During their courtship, Ruth Totton was warned by Palmer's founder, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, that Totton was a good man, but "he hasn't got a dime."

Undeterred, she retorted that he could always earn money.

They married in June 1948.

Totton is survived by his wife, his son Robert, five grandsons, three great-grandsons and a number of relatives and friends.

Contact Tiffany S. Jones at 373- 7157 or tiffany.jones@news-record.com