Kenneth Poe Funeral Services

June 16, 2024

CHARLOTTE – Caroline Billhime Busch, 97, passed away on Sunday, June 16, 2024.  She was born June 23, 1926, in Williamsport, PA, and grew up in nearby Muncy.

Upon graduating from Muncy High School in 1944, she spent the remainder of World War II working on an assembly line at a nearby Sylvania factory that manufactured communications gear for the war effort.

In 1950, Caroline graduated from the Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University), and subsequently worked as a dietician at hospitals in Princeton, NJ and Philadelphia.  While working at the former hospital, she briefly met Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein, whose sister was then a patient.

In 1955, Caroline married fellow Drexel graduate and mechanical engineer Laurence E. Busch Jr., originally from Paulsboro, NJ.  Together, they brought four children into this world, as Larry’s career took them from Augusta, GA to Charleston, WV and Parkersburg, WV, where they settled to raise their family.

In Parkersburg, despite having four children to nurture, Caroline found time to volunteer.  She served as a Nash Elementary School PTA president and a Girl Scout troop leader at the First United Methodist Church, as well as volunteering at the First Unitarian Church of Marietta, OH.

Caroline also was one of the first generation of volunteer call-takers at the Care Line of Parkersburg.  On one occasion, she took a call from a man who declared that he intended to commit suicide.  Caroline alerted her colleagues, and convinced the man to divulge his address.  She kept him on the phone and talking, while the Care Line’s rapid response team rushed to the man’s residence, to provide face-to-face counseling.

Upon Larry’s retirement from DuPont’s Washington Works, he and Caroline moved to Hickory, NC in 1991, where she once again took the time to serve her community.  Caroline was a volunteer for 15 years at Sweetwater and Viewmont Elementary Schools, tutoring students who needed a little extra help learning to read.  She also volunteered as a receptionist at the Cooperative Christian Ministry Healthcare Clinic for 14 years.

Caroline will long be remembered for her flashes of wit and dry humor, which remained with her to the very end.  Her last birthday dinner was, at her request, a lobster roll and a few nips of scotch and soda.

Caroline was predeceased by her husband Laurence and her sister Elizabeth Billhime Farley.

Caroline is survived by her brother John Billhime of Montoursville, PA, son Andrew (and his wife Debi) of Charlotte, NC, son Peter of Columbus, OH, daughter Deborah of Newport, KY, and son John (and his wife Robin) of New Canaan, CT, as well as four grandchildren (Katie, David, Jackson and Callie) and two great-grandsons (Wheeler and Rexford).

Services will be private.  Caroline’s remains will be interred at the Muncy Cemetery in Muncy, PA.

Arrangements are in the care of Kenneth W. Poe Funeral & Cremation Service, 1321 Berkeley Ave., Charlotte, NC 28204; (704) 641-7606. Online condolences may be shared at www.kennethpoeservices.com.