The Eggers Family:
A Century of Legal Service Going to work at one Boone law firm is something like a family reunion. Story by Jim Thompson • Photography by Peter Morris
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t Eggers, Eggers, Eggers & Eggers on West King Street, three generations of one family practice law side by side, continuing a tradition that began when Stacy C. Eggers Jr. hung out his shingle on June 1, 1950. Today, he, his daughter Rebecca Eggers-Gryder and grandson Stacy C. Eggers IV share the same office. The patriarch of the family is Stacy Clyde Eggers Jr., whose active role in the firm, wonderful storytelling and rapid-fire sense of humor belie his 85 years. Having just started his 60th year as an attorney last month, Eggers is the senior member of the bar not only in Watauga County, but in the whole 24th Judicial District. He is not, however, the oldest practicing attorney in the state, he believes. “There are some old coots out there even older than me,” he said with a grin. Eggers’ rich memories provide one of the few remaining living links to when Boone was still a small town, when you knew everyone on King Street—and that was all there was to Boone in those days. The stories of people and events dating back half a century ago and longer flow naturally from the man. The Eggers family traces its ancestry to Landrine Eggers (1757-1837), a Revolutionary War soldier who left his native New Jersey for Ashe County (which then included what is now Watauga) following that conflict. He settled on How-
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ard’s Creek and his family was among the first members of Three Forks Baptist Church. Stacy Clyde Eggers Sr., who was known by his first initial and middle name, was a real estate agent in Boone for many years. Active in the Republican Party, he served four terms in the state legislature. In 1960, the elder Eggers ran as the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, winning 41 percent of the vote—the highest any Republican had received for that office since 1896. Born in 1924, Stacy Eggers Jr. served two and a half years in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. “I spent more time at sea than most sailors,” he said, and in the process literally got a ‘round-the-world tour. “I started at Fort Bragg, then sailed to North Africa,” Eggers said. “Then we went on the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. I arrived at Bombay, India, and then took a train across India, almost to Calcutta.” There, he took part in the effort to drive the Japanese invaders from Burma. “I left there for Australia, which is a great country that I thoroughly enjoyed,” he said. Which prompted a story. Years later, when his daughter Becca was in first grade, she asked her daddy whether he had been to Australia, which she was studying in school. The answer was, of course, yes, and Eggers went on to explain, with a straight face, how the president of the United