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A note rests near flowers outside an entrance to the British Consulate General, in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022, following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday after 70 years on the throne. She was 96.
Mourners gather outside the British Embassy in Washington, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022. Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday after 70 years on the throne. She was 96. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
As the U.S. and North Carolina flags were lowered to half-staff in honor of Queen Elizabeth II, whose death was announced Thursday afternoon, Triad residents also mourned the passing of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.
High Point transplant Claire Horney says she has lots of stories to share one day with her 2-year-old granddaughter, such as having been born on the same day the queen gave birth to her son Andrew.
“That’s how I got the (middle) name Elizabeth — because the queen had a baby the same day,” Horney, 62, said with a laugh.
The former Londoner remembers sitting on her father’s shoulders as a child, watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and also seeing the queen on horseback.
“There are things from your childhood you just don’t think about until things like this happen,” said Horney, who came to the United States in 1984 with her father, who was in the furniture business. Her mother still lives in London.
“I doubt if people could get that close to a queen anymore,” said Horney, whose grandfather had been a civil servant under Winston Churchill.
When Prince William married the former Kate Middleton in 2011, Horney watched the royal wedding in the wee hours of the morning with a gathering of other women at the home of their friend Linda Zenns. The event called for tea, scones and other British touches, and Horney wore a white T-shirt she painted with the red and blue markings of the Union Jack flag.
Horney followed the recent change of prime ministers, which requires the queen to welcome the new head of government. “The fact that the queen hadn’t come to Buckingham Palace where they would normally meet her, I knew something wasn’t right,” Horney said. “But I knew at her age she had the right not to do that.”
She learned of the queen’s death from her daughter.
“She said, “Mommy, I’m so sorry, the queen died,” Horney said. “It took me so by surprise that the tears started rolling down my face. I think it’s because she’s been there my whole life. She is the only monarch I’ve known and she’s been such a rock. I know we have the idea that queens sit around and get waited on, but she’s taken her job so seriously and shown such integrity.”
Elon University English professor Rosemary Haskell said multiple generations were touched by the queen’s reign. This summer, Haskell wrote an op-ed piece about the queen that appeared in the News & Record.
“I feel shocked by an event which everyone in the United Kingdom, and in the Commonwealth, knew could not be too long delayed,” Haskell wrote in an email to the News & Record. “Only two days ago, Her Majesty the Queen was bidding farewell to outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and then asking Liz Truss to form a new government, as incoming PM. And now, the Queen is gone.
“I feel sad in part because I feel that the thread joining me not only to the country’s past, but to my own family’s past, has been cut. It may be that when the British now think of the Queen’s long life and long reign, they will also think of their own parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. The Queen was part of all their lives, at high and low points in the country’s, and the world’s history,” Haskell said.
“In a world that right now feels full of more changes than usual, some of them rather daunting perhaps, it will be difficult to realize that the person who was “always there” has now gone. Now, the British will have to start to sing “God save our gracious King” — something they haven’t had to do since 1952. The carved heads on coins and on postage stamps will have to change: they will have to represent that new person, King Charles III.”
Jessica Mashburn, a Greensboro singer/artist, with mostly Scottish/British heritage, also was saddened by the news.
“I was washing dishes when I heard the news that the Queen had died,” Mashburn said in a text to the News & Record. “These are lost feelings I’ve not had since Diana’s passing. ‘Long lived the Queen’ and for the first time we learn to live without her.
“I was born in July of 1981, just before the royal wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles,” Mashburn said. “I had the paper dolls of Diana/Queen Elizabeth II and their lives were the backdrop of many dreams and tea parties of my youth.
“As a hat maker, of course the fashion of the royal family has been a constant inspiration for my creativity of that medium. Above all, I think for many of us with United Kingdom heritage, it’s the steadfast existence of the royal family in times of chaos that gives us peace,” Mashburn said.
“Queen Elizabeth II taught so many of us how to carry ourselves with class and gracefulness, even under fire,” Mashburn said. “It brings me to this quote from her from 2006: ‘I’ve lived long enough to know that things never remain quite the same for very long.’”
Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 336-373-5204 and follow @dawndkaneNR on Twitter.
More on Queen Elizabeth II's legacy, her reign and what comes next, Pages A5 and A6.
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A note rests near flowers outside an entrance to the British Consulate General, in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022, following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday after 70 years on the throne. She was 96.
Mourners gather outside the British Embassy in Washington, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022. Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday after 70 years on the throne. She was 96. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
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