Dr. Charles Deems Lefler

CHARLES DEEMS LEFLER 

He who loves understands, and he who understands loves. One who feels understood feels loved, and one who feels loved feels sure of being understood. Dr. Paul Tournier 

Dr. Charles Deems Lefler left his earthly life on November 12, 2024.

He was born in Durham, North Carolina on January 8, 1944, and grew up in Chapel Hill, NC. He attended Chapel Hill High School and Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout in a local troop. He completed his undergraduate and medical degrees at UNC-Chapel Hill. His internship and residency were at the University of Kentucky, and he was on active duty for two years in the U.S. Navy where he served as medical officer in Seabee Battalion 8 in Gulfport, MS, and Okinawa. After completing residency and teaching for a year at University of Kentucky, Dr. Lefler established a practice in Brevard, NC in 1976 with his friend and colleague Dr. Dale Nash. As a part of the Transylvania County Medical Community, Dr. Lefler joined with all the local physicians to make our hospital and medical community the best it could be. 

Dr. Lefler spent his life practicing internal medicine, emphasizing seeing and caring for each patient. He encouraged a balance of conventional medical approaches and additional natural therapies. Dr. Paul Tournier, a Swiss physician, who wrote about Medicine of the Whole Person, was a vital role model.

He loved to fish, hike, sing and was an amazing whistler. The hospital staff always said they knew he was on the way when they heard the whistle coming down the hall. He was a lifelong runner and tennis player. He loved the ocean and these mountains and the UNC Tarheels. His family remembers that he could untangle anything…fishing lines, gold chains. He was the great untangler, which seems to his family the way he approached diagnosis. He loved his patients and the people in this county. And he cherished his wife and family. 

Dr. Lefler is survived by his wife Susan and their four children: Nathan, Jason, Page, and Miriam, eleven grandchildren, and son- and daughters-in-law Paul Gallimore, Juli Lefler, Annie Hounsokou Lefler and close-knit extended family including sister-in-law Connie Lefler, and niece and nephew, Tasa and Tal. He and his wife Susan were married for 58 years and have been involved members of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church since 1976. He was predeceased by his brother Hugh Talmage Lefler, Jr. 

A memorial service will be held at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church on Saturday, November 23, 2024, at 2pm. 

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to World Central Kitchen, Inc., P.O. Box 96538, Washington, DC, 20090 or Sharing House (Transylvania Christian Ministry), 154 Duckworth Avenue, Brevard, NC 28712.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared to the on-line registry at “Obituaries”, www.mooreblanchard.com.

Moore-Blanchard Funerals & Cremations is honored to be serving the family.