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I carried Stella Roulhac's casket this week.

I didn't know her. But I knew her daughter, Chris, her only child.

I always ran into Chris when I was out late scouring the Triad for live music. This time, though, I traded in my T-shirt and a sweet spot by the sound board for my one funeral suit and a front-row pew at her mother's home church.

I joined a quirky circle of acquaintances and friends. We pallbearers - a crew of musicians and blues fans - sat inside Greensboro's Grace United Methodist Church and listened to a minister reminisce about a woman none of us knew.

But the more we heard, the more we realized we knew someone just like Stella - that one person who influenced us and made us understand a little better our small crossroads in the world.

It was something Stella's minister said. In his eulogy, the Rev. Mike Moran mentioned a quote from novelist Henry Adams: "A teacher affects eternity, they can never tell where their influence stops.''

That's Stella. And we all know one.

Like a high school sophomore in Rockingham County. Or a criminal justice major at N.C. A&T. Or a 106-year-old woman, a fixture in Greensboro's Kirkwood neighborhood, known as Fannie.

Fannie Hardin Northrop Kletzien died in her sleep. N.C. A&T student Dennis Hayle died near his apartment. Nick Adkins of Mayodan's McMichael High School died near his house.

Kletzien died of natural causes, in the umpteenth encore of her life. Hayle and Adkins were killed barely into their first act: Hayle, by someone with a handgun; Adkins, by a driver who hit him as he tried to board his school bus.

They're gone. But people will remember them.

Adkins for his gentle spirit. Hayle for his campus activism. And Kletzien for her hospitality on her front porch, which she turned into a gathering spot for generations of families, generations of friends.

Then there's Stella Efland Roulhac. And her Hershey Bar Cake. She made it with her only grandson, Will.

She also sewed, golfed, dressed fancy, gave to charities, drove a Lincoln Town Car, played chimes in her church and told her fiancé, Bill Roulhac, when he slipped to one knee and proposed, "Get up, you fool!"

That happened at Moses Cone Hospital, where she worked as chief medical records librarian. Bill and Stella were married for 51 years.

Yes, Stella had some backbone. She was from rural Orange County, one of 10 children. She graduated from Woman's College (now UNCG) with a degree in chemistry during a time when women were steered more toward home than an office.

She went the office route. She was even recruited to work for the FBI.

But she became a laboratory chemist in California and worked for a big oil company in the Big Apple before she returned to Greensboro when Moses Cone Hospital was established.

Along the way, she became a friend to many -- her husband, her grandson and her church, Grace United Methodist, a place she attended for more than 40 years.

And of course, she became a close friend to her daughter. Stella helped Chris through the death of her husband, and Chris helped Stella through the decision to place her husband, Chris' dad, into an assisted living center because of Alzheimer's.

On Sunday, Chris said goodbye. Stella died at Wesley Long Hospital, with Chris there, holding her right hand, Will holding her left.

Stella was 84. She died after a brief bout with pneumonia. She was remembered Thursday. She was buried Friday. In the words of Rev. Moran, "Because she lived, our lives are better.''

The same could be said for Nick Adkins, Dennis Hayle and Fannie Hardin Northrop Kletzien, the woman known as the "neighborhood rock.''

Their lives were far from irrelevant.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com