Early in their marriage, the couple had two children: Lucius "Wade" (b. 1979) and Catharine "Cate" (b. 1982). Wade died at age 16 on April 4, 1996, when he lost control of his Jeep and crashed while driving from their home in Raleigh to the family's beach house near Wilmington. Three weeks before his death, Wade had been honored by First Lady Hillary Clinton at the White House as one of ten finalists in an essay contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Voice of America. Wade, accompanied by his parents and his sister, met North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. After Wade died, Helms entered his essay and his obituary into the Congressional Record. Wade was buried in Raleigh's Oakwood Cemetery, with a grave designed by Robert Mihaly.