Sue Ann Hensley, 87, beloved mother, church member, and hospital volunteer, passed peacefully in the presence of her sons and her Pastor, on Saturday afternoon, August 2, 2014.
Sue had a challenging year after a surgery in 2013, and her body just could not fully recover. Her family met and told stories about her amazing life in the morning. And later, with her sons present, her Pastor, Stephen Yates, came to share a scripture and prayer for that day. She gently passed just minutes after.
Sue was born in Harlan, KY, in 1928, the oldest daughter of James Glenn Bolling and Daisy Leona Bolling. Her sister, Mary Pless, lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Rex Pless. Her cousin Tom Parsons practices law in Manchester, TN. And her cousin, Dr. Cecil Howard, lives in Maryville, TN. She attended Marshall University in Huntington, WVA, and graduated from Draugnon Business College in Knoxville, TN. She worked for two years at the Pentagon’s Navy Annex Building for two years. During that time, she wrote letters back and forth to her high school sweetheart, Robert L. Hensley, who was stationed with the Army in Austria. He commissioned a painting of her while in Austria, and proposed in a letter while overseas. They married in Fountain City, TN, in January of 1953. Sue had her first son, Robert, 10 months later in November of 1953, and her second son, Mark, was born in October of 1956. As an Army wife for 22 years, Sue has lived in South Carolina, Texas, California, Knoxville, Fort Knox, Taiwan, Germany, and Georgia, before retiring in Florida in 1969. She moved to Tullahoma with her husband Robert in 1991 and they immediately joined the First Presbyterian Church where they found friendship and spirit. They made strong bonds in the neighborhood and at church. Her husband passed in 1993 from lung cancer. After her husband passed, Sue served as a volunteer at Harton Regional Medical Center in Tullahoma for almost 20 years, and trained many of the volunteers that are active now. Sue is most remembered for her sense of humor, her style, and her ability to laugh at the problems of life. To keep her heart flowing, Sue adopted a white bishon frise in 1993, Cody La Bear, a dog that kept her active and engaged telling stories about the dog’s mischief and intelligence. When Cody passed in 2006, she started having a visitor, a stray cat named Tucker, who eventually agreed to let Sue bring her inside. Her other passions included painting, volunteering, crafts of all kinds, and the Red Hatters, where she expressed her creativity. She loved watching films and shows with her favorite actor, Tom Selleck. And she loved satisfying her endless curiosity watching shows about how things were made, from foods to the pyramids. She will be missed by family and friends, and she want her life to be celebrated more than mourned.
Memorial services will be held at the First Presbyterian Church of Tullahoma, located at 204 E. grundy Street, Tullahoma, TN, 37388, at 2:00 pm, Thursday, Aug 7, 2014. Phone 931-455-9328.
There will be a reception following at the Church. In lieu of flowers, family has requested donations be made to Sue Hensley’s favorite charity, the First Presbyterian Church of Tullahoma.
Her sons would like to share one of things we heard her say over and over throughout the years: “Just do whatever makes you happy”.
Kilgore Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.