Obituary: James Marion Parrott, Jr.
James Marion Parrott, Jr. died on January 11, 2025. He was born in Kinston, North Carolina on February 8, 1947, the son of James M. Parrott and Erwin W. Parrott.
After spending his early childhood years in Kinston, Jim graduated from Woodberry Forest School. He treasured his time at Woodberry, where he was an all-prep second baseman and made lifelong friends. Three of those friends, Si Sitterson, Tom Parrott, and Ben Carey, honored him in 2022 with the donation of a pew in the Woodberry Forest Chapel. Jim also graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of the Order of the Gimghoul, the Zeta Psi fraternity, and left a lifelong basketball fan.
Following graduation, Jim moved to Raleigh, where he worked with Wachovia Bank for almost thirty years. Upon the death of his father, Jim retired from banking and took over the family farm in Kinston.
Jim was active in his church and his community. As a member of White Memorial Presbyterian Church, he drove the church shuttle van and traveled to Mexico on mission trips. He served as President of the Board of Directors of The Boys and Girls Clubs of Wake County, and he was on the Board of Visitors for the Institute of the Environment at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Jim was a quiet, kind gentleman whose life revolved around his family, close friends, the family farm and his communities in Raleigh and Kinston. He belonged to several social clubs, including the Sphinx Club, Terpsichorean Club, Capital Cotillion, Lamplighters, and the Carolina Country Club. For nearly forty years, he played golf weekly with Harold Berry, Joe Cheshire, and Tim Nicholls. Jim also loved to travel, hiking on Mount Everest, Mount Kenya and Ben Nevis, and exploring Tibet, Sri Lanka, Patagonia and New Zealand, collecting an eventually overwhelming number of national flags along the way. He never took his opportunities for granted.
Jim is survived by a family he loved dearly and who loved him in return, including his wife, Susan Milner Parrott, his sons, Jimbo Parrott (Elizabeth Sasser) and Josh Parrott (Hillary Parrott), his stepdaughters, Macy Parker (Kilian Betlach) and Hannah Parker (Owen Sucoff), and his grandchildren, Martha, Carter, Ella, and Atticus Parrott, Leo and Alta Betlach, and Oscar Sucoff. He is also survived by his sister, Erwin Boyd (Bill Boyd) and her family. In addition to his parents, Jim was predeceased by his grandson, Jacob Parrott.
A service of Witness to the Resurrection will be held at White Memorial Presbyterian Church, 1704 Oberlin Road, Raleigh, on Thursday, January 16th at 2:00 p.m. The family will receive friends at the church immediately following the service. The family requests that those wishing to make a memorial gift consider The Boys and Girls Clubs of Wake County or White Memorial Presbyterian Church.
