Diane C. Scott

Diane C. Scott, 90, died on March 5, 2024, at Deerfield Retirement Community in Asheville, NC. As a young girl, Diane enjoyed competing with the boys on the playground and grew into a promising young athlete. In elementary school, Diane, an avid reader and gifted student, was moved forward two grades. She had a beautiful alto voice with perfect pitch and loved to sing in harmony with others. In high school, she was selected for the New Jersey All-State Chorus, served as the yearbook editor-in-chief, and was captain of the varsity tennis team.

At age 16, she headed for Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, following her family legacy as a sixth-generation Bucknellian. On her first day of freshman registration, Diane met her future husband, Victor. One of the values they discovered they shared was a deep commitment to civil rights. The young couple soon became active in the local chapter of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), where Diane served as Secretary and Membership Chair. She also served as Secretary of Bucknell’s Christian Association, a dynamic campus organization.

Diane played undefeated throughout four years of intramural women’s tennis and won the Bucknell championship. She majored in English, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor Society, and graduated magna cum laude in 1954.

Diane and Vic soon married, and in 1955 they purchased 300 acres and launched their wholesale nursery farm in New Jersey. Over the next 45 years, they reclaimed an eroded tomato farm and raised trees, evergreens, and flowering shrubs.

Life in those early days was bustling, as they learned the ins and outs of running a business and raising a family together. Diane often started her day at dawn with a three-mile jog or bicycle ride through the rural countryside. Her thriftiness was legendary and she cooked everything from scratch. Her delicious homemade breads were always on the menu, and ribbons she’d won at the County Fair adorned her kitchen wall.

The big old farmhouse the Scott family lived in allowed Diane lots of space to open up their home to anyone who needed a meal or a place to stay, for weeks or for months. Diane considered it her ministry in life to welcome strangers. This radical hospitality was extended constantly: to Vietnamese war refugees who spoke no English, prison inmates on work release, missionaries on furlough, women escaping domestic violence, foreign students with no family nearby, and many Habitat for Humanity volunteers—including President Jimmy Carter.

Her mother used to say that Diane was two weeks old the first Sunday she attended church—and Diane remained very dedicated to her church communities throughout her life. As newlyweds, she and her husband became pillars of the First Baptist Church of Woodstown, NJ (an American Baptist congregation) for decades. After moving to North Carolina, she was an active member of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheville for another 25 years, continuing to attend faithfully online through the pandemic and her declining mobility.

Diane volunteered for many causes, especially initiatives that enhanced interracial understanding, such as an outreach program for Spanish migrant workers. She never sought the spotlight for herself, but she applied her prodigious writing talents in many ways — freelance magazine articles, personalized poems for loved ones to commemorate special occasions, amusing skits and memorable songs, and a biography book about her parents. She wrote hundreds of handwritten notes of encouragement over the years, sent to anyone who needed a kind word. She even maintained a faithful 25-year-long correspondence with a man who was on death row.

In the early 1970s, Diane was among the small group of visionaries who founded the organization that would become Habitat for Humanity International. She subsequently co-wrote and published several books (pro bono) that recounted inspiring stories about the burgeoning organization and helped to introduce thousands of people to the mission of Habitat.

Diane was a founder of Salem County Habitat for Humanity, the first Habitat affiliate in the Northeast. In 1996 that local chapter named the Scotts their “Volunteers of the Decade.” Each year since then someone has received the “Vic & Diane Scott Volunteer of the Year” award.

Diane and Vic sold their farmland to The Nature Conservancy and then retired to Asheville in 1999. The land is now permanently protected as a New Jersey Wildlife Management Area.

Diane is survived by her three children, Ellen, (Richard), Wendy, (Sandra), and Kevin, and one grandchild, Jacky, (Tom). She was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 64 years, Victor F. Scott.

She donated her organs to the Human Brain and Spinal Fluid Resource Center at UCLA in California, to be used in a national study researching multiple sclerosis and other neurological diseases. Her ashes will be spread back in New Jersey by her children.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Habitat for Humanity of Salem County (416 S. Pennsville-Auburn Road, Carneys Point, NJ 08069). website: HabitatSalem.org

A celebration of Diane Scott’s life will be held at First Congregational UCC Church, 20 Oak Street, Asheville, NC on Saturday, April 20 at 1:00 pm, with a reception to follow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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