Talking retirement, not politics, with McAbee

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It was 1999 and Charles “Bill” Ross, the register of deeds for Cabarrus County, was battling pancreatic cancer.

With his health failing, he decided to resign that year. And since he was a Democrat, the Democratic Party got to pick his replacement.

Linda McAbee, who had been with the register of deeds’ office since 1973, was chosen to fill the vacancy.

Fast-forward to today and McAbee, who’s wrapping up her third term as the county’s 28th register of deeds, is about to retire, something that many people in today’s economy can only dream about doing thanks to their 401(k)s being worth less than an IOU from Greece.

McAbee, 64, announced this year that she would be quitting sometime next year, when she’ll be just shy of four decades with the register of deeds’ office.

It’s a pretty important office, but one that most people rarely think about. It stores copies of public records, like marriage licenses, birth and death certificates, deeds for real estate purchases, subdivision maps, condo plans and other land documents.

“We touch your life from birth to death,” McAbee likes to say.

McAbee probably hadn’t considered running the register of deeds’ office back in 1973. Born and raised in Cabarrus County, she started working for then-Register of Deeds James Bonds after she had been employed for the justice of the peace.

Under Bonds, she started as a clerk, far removed from the position she would eventually hold.

Reflecting on ’73, one of the biggest differences in the office from today was in technology, she said.

For one, there wasn’t a computer to be found, but the typewriter was still going strong. (For those of you in your early 20s or younger, please consult the dictionary app on your iPhone for the definition of typewriter.)

To make copies of documents, the register of deeds’ office had to use a special camera that would take pictures of the paperwork from above.

The office’s procedures were different back then, too. For example, it used to be that before it could issue a marriage license, couples would have to go to a doctor for physicals and blood testing.

McAbee moved up in the office, to deputy assistant and then to senior assistant. After the Democrats made her register of deeds in 1999, McAbee, with no one in politics in her family, ran for the office the following year.

She won every re-election, first in 2004 and then in 2008, defeating her opponents by a wider margin each time, she said.

“You have to have the confidence and the votes of the Democrats, the Republicans and the Independents,” she said. “I ran all three times on ‘I am not a politician, but I know my job.’”

She really doesn’t like talking politics. I tried getting her to discuss whether she would re-elect Obama, but she politely asked me to change the subject.

She also asked to stay away from what she described as the lowest point — at least while she worked there — in the office’s history.

“I would rather not get into that,” she said. “That goes back to something that happened with the register that was charged with embezzlement.”

Benton “Benny” Weaver was register of deeds at the time.

“That’s something that we’ve all tried to forget,” she said. “It was terrible what we went through as staff members.”

But among her favorite moments: the time actress Suzanne Rogers from “Days of our Lives” and NASCAR driver and announcer Darrell Waltrip came to her office.

In pointing to her accomplishments, McAbee says that, under her watch, the county’s website for land records was launched, and land records going back to  the year the county was formed, 1792, have been backed up.

As for the official retirement date, well, she hasn’t figured that one out. She plans to finish her term, and there will be an election for her office in November of 2012.

She recalls a promise she made to Ross before he died, that she would run for the position once, get her 30 years in with the office and retire while she was still healthy and could spend time with her family.

“So I think it’s time to go,” she said.

Roberts can be reached at [email protected].