Viola "Tootie" Robertson

Viola "Tootie" Goforth Robertson, Mother of Cool Spring Township, Passes Away 11 Days Shy of 92nd Birthday.

Viola "Tootie" Goforth Robertson passed away on February 15th, 2026, following an extended decline. She was born on Feb. 26th, 1934, in the North Iredell community as Viola Goforth to Maggie and Jay Boyce Goforth. She got the nickname "Tootie" as a child because her young baby brother Johnny called her that and it stuck with her friends for life.

Tootie graduated from Harmony High School and the Davis Hospital School of Nursing. On July 20th, 1957, she married her high school sweetheart William "Bill" Cline Robertson. After marriage they both moved to the community of Cool Spring on Highway 64 to live in a home built by Bill's father so his son could manage the tobacco, dairy, and ginning enterprises while teaching. Tootie was a part-time night shift nurse for Davis Medical Center until she retired in 1992. In addition to playing softball, volleyball, and bowling on champion teams, Tootie also enjoyed traveling with her husband and friends like Ann Beaty and saw most of the USA with her husband and took one memorable trip to Europe with her youngest son Dirk in 1982. She also travelled to many Lake Junaluska United Methodist conferences and camps and loved helping kids with special needs at UMC camps every year with UMC Ministers like the Christy Family. She also enjoyed going to concerts of her sons who were both music majors and choir directors and involved in music organizations throughout NC. She was particularly proud of oldest son Dwayne’s selection to play in the Governor’s Mansion and at Biltmore.

Tootie and Bill thought of themselves as parents of the entire township of Cool Spring. For example, Tootie boiled about 100 hot dogs for 20+ Halloweens for all community kids and parents to come eat at their house before they went trick-or-treating. Many Christmases she would dress as Santa Claus and go to Cool Spring School on the last day before break and hand out treats to the whole school at lunchtime. She also organized three weekend shifts of Ham Day workers at Cool Spring School for 25+ years to raise money for the Cool Spring Volunteer Fire Department. Additionally, she would oversee the township's Mother's March of Dimes each January in the 1970s and 80s and would work hard raising funds for the reputable charity while going door to door on cold January Superbowl Sundays.

Tootie and her deceased husband Bill both served as volunteers and/or officers in the East Iredell Lions Club, The Cool Spring Ruritan Association, The Oakdale Women's Club, the board of Cool Spring United Methodist Church, the March of Dimes Society, Yokefellow Ministries and Fifth Street Shelter, the Salvation Army, reunion organization committees for Harmony and Cool Spring High Schools and the Davis Hospital School Nursing Alumni Association, staffers for the Cool Spring Township election and voting proceedings, alto and tenor for the Cool Spring United Methodist Church Choir, the New Salem Softball League, the Wednesday Morning Ladies' Bowling League in which Tootie bowled for 50+ years as a founding member, Cool Spring Elementary School where Tootie coached many sports teams and shared her beloved pet monkey of 35 years "Cheetah" with the children at fall festivals, the Iredell County Recreation Department, and the Cool Spring Volunteer Fire Department. Tootie considered Cheetah her first born and was heartbroken when he died in the 1990’s after 35 years. Tootie cried for weeks in the produce section of the grocery store because she no longer had to make her “Cheetah trips” to get his favorite lettuce, grapes, and mini corn on the cobs (he eventually learned to like bananas).

Tootie shared about the challenges of playing basketball when female sports were discouraged. She would rush through her farm chores after school, and literally run to Jennings Rd. to catch the activity bus to go play away games in 1951. She liked playing donkey basketball in exhibition games. She explained that they put ladies on donkeys to get the community to see more than just the male games. She liked it because she was short and worked hard to score in regular basketball but was the leading scorer in donkey basketball. She also had a brief desire to serve her country when she completed nursing training: she announced to her mom in mom’s kitchen while making biscuits one day that she would not be here for holidays next year because she decided to enlist as an Army Field Nurse in early 50’s. Suddenly a cut round biscuit dough flew by her nose and stuck to the wall beside her head and Maggie Goforth, a woman of minimal words, proclaimed “no daughter of mine is following her brother into war.” Thus, Tootie’s campaign ended to serve her country militarily (but it made her more determined to serve as a citizen in non-profit community work).

Tootie started as an athlete and tractor driver and not a chef but eventually learned to be a great cook for her family and community and her recipes are preserved in church cookbooks and on engraved cutting boards owned by her children and grandchildren. She was also a good artist and crafter and made many items to sell with friend Barbara Lazenby in the Statesville Craft show each November in the 1970s and 80s. She discussed art regularly with her artist neighbor Lorane Page and they would sometimes collaborate on paintings together and enjoyed the quilting artistry of Lorane’s daughters Patti and Cindy Page who shared so much beauty and added to mom’s own hand-quilted treasures made by her own mother Maggie Goforth.

Two of Tootie’s many passions were college basketball and the Atlanta Braves. She never missed a Braves telecast since getting a satellite dish in 1989. One of her favorite gifts as a child was an old blank baseball scorekeeping book; she would sit by the family radio and keep her own score of the radio-announced games. Her husband Bill didn’t share her sports passion at first but eventually caved. Friends still laugh about their attending the “Big 4” ACC Basketball Tournament and Bill getting up to leave after the first game not realizing he was in for a doubleheader evening!

Tootie and Bill’s marriage was filled with love and even more laughter. The community still fondly recalls the windy autumn day when Bill decided to burn the leaves out of the roadside ditch and promptly incinerated Tootie’s prize junipers flanking the driveway which were planted after their honeymoon many years prior. While Bill huffed and puffed from the spigot with buckets of water, all Tootie could yell from the front porch was “Moses, go ahead and burn every bush on the property while you’re at it!”

Tootie also enjoyed scrapbooking and left behind countless articles, photos, and clippings of everyone she ever knew and their relatives too. She was also a good amateur photographer and preserved many photos of the building of Cool Spring United Methodist Church and all members of the church during its growth in the 1970s. She loved watching after children at the beach each June and taking pictures of the Goforths, Beatys, Bessents, Dagenharts, Pages, Fishers, Adkins, Wilsons, Jordans, Nantzes, and other families who joined in swimming, sunning, making sandcastles, and buying snow cones from the cart. She also loved fall camping with the Brendles, Wootens, Moorefields, Myers, Strouds, Stevensons, Combs, and other families who gathered in the NC mountains. She was comforted in her last months with these memories and talking regularly with friends like JoAnne Drum, Mary Wilkerson, Peggy Boyte, Linda Felts, Betty Niblock, and all the retired nurses who regularly met at breakfast.

While she was saddened that her church in Cool Spring voted to leave the United Methodist faith in the last few years of her life, she still faithfully attended services every Sunday and enjoyed a memorable 90th birthday party with many loved ones in the fellowship hall in February of 2024. She was preceded in death by her husband of 60 years who died on November 25th, 2017, and by her younger brother Johnny. She is survived by her two sons Dr. William Dwayne Robertson of the Cool Spring Community (and wife Dana Robertson) and Ryan Dirk Robertson of Lewisville (and husband James Sands). She had two grandchildren, Kirsten Robertson Garcia (husband Carlos) and Katelyn Robertson Morgan (husband John) from Dwayne’s first marriage to Kimberly Millsaps, and four bonus grandchildren: Lauren White Gibson (husband Steve) and Carli White (deceased) by Dwayne's marriage to Lisa Jordan, Dominique Wyatt (husband Nathan) and Michaela Hamm (husband Derek) by Dwayne's marriage to Dana, one nephew Dr. Allen Dobson (wife Martha) of Mt. Pleasant, and two nieces: Sheila Goforth Martin (husband Terry) and Tonja Goforth of Statesville. She also had two highly prized great grandchildren Laila Eve Montgomery (who was by Meemaw's side every day) and newborn Jackson “Jack” García (both children of Kirsten and Carlos Garcia) as well as four bonus great grandchildren (Lauren Gibson’s precious Miles Wilder and Teagan Carli and Dominique Wyatt’s beautiful Camryn McKinley and Michaela Hamm’s great newborn Sloane Scarlett) she enjoyed as well.

Nicholson Funeral Home is handling arrangements. A luncheon-provided visitation will be held at Broad Street United Methodist Church on Thursday Feb. 19th, 2026, from 12:00PM until 1:30PM, with a funeral service at Nicholson Funeral Home Chapel in Statesville at 2:00 pm, followed by burial at Oakwood Cemetery. The service will be conducted by the Rev. Paul Christy, Rev. Tom Jones, and Pastor Darren Custer. The Robertson sons are grateful for loved ones who want to remember Tootie and her sacrifices to the community.

Memorials can be sent to the Western NC Conference of the United Methodist Church P.O. Box 2757 Attn: Glenn Kinken, Treasurer, Huntersville NC 28070 with memo line “for Tootie Robertson Fund.” Condolences for the family may also be sent online to www.nicholsonfunerals.com or to youngest son’s Dirk’s email of dirkteach@yahoo.com.

Nicholson Funeral Home is honored to serve the Robertson family.