Obit – Mr. Sam Stephens
Mr. Sam Stephens died peacefully at his Gordonsville home with his wife at his bedside on Thursday morning July 6, 2013 at the age of 84. He was under the loving care of Caris Hospice of Cookeville and pronounced deceased at 7:27 a.m.
A Celebration of Life memorial service will be on Saturday afternoon July 15th at 3 p.m. from the Lighthouse Church in the New Middleton Community. Randy Stephens will deliver the eulogy and Mr. Stephens’s Pastor, Bro. Doug Dillard, will officiate the Celebration of Life.
The Stephens family will receive friends at the Lighthouse Church only on Saturday July 15th from 1 p.m. until the Celebration of Life at 3 p.m. at the church.
Musical presence will be by Terri Lynn Weaver.
Mr. Stephens was one of eight children and was the son of the late Alene Dodson Stephens who died November 18, 1996 at the age of 77 and Casto Stephens who died September 8, 1972 at the age of 52.
At the Presbyterian Church in Wildwood, Illinois on August 28, 1965, he was united in marriage to the former Rita Carol Raeinhardt.
As a resident of the Wilder Community, Mr. Stephens was a 1955 graduate of the Clarkrange High School in Fentress County, Tennessee and went on to further his education at a Vocational School and became a certified electrician.
He served our country with the United States Army during the Vietnam War and was inducted at Fort Campbell, Kentucky on January 20, 1962 and was honorably discharged at Fort Campbell with the rank of Specialist 5th Class on January 19, 1965. His overseas assigned service was one year and fifteen days.
Following military service he was an electrician for Abbott Laboratories and later as a civilian employee electrician at the Great Lakes Naval Station in Great Lakes, Illinois.
Mr. Stephens was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers # 150 in Liberty, Illinois.
Following retirement Mr. and Mrs. Stephens traveled across the country in their motor home with the Mission America Placement Services and retired to Gordonsville because of the closeness to the interstate and Vanderbilt University Medical Center where Mr. Stephens was receiving treatment for Parkinson disease.
Surviving in addition to his wife Rita of almost fifty eight years are their two sons, Jeffrey Stephens and wife Kim, Dirk Stephens and wife Margaret; nine grandchildren, Zachary Stephens, Ryan Stephens, Eric Campbell, Ashley Sandidge, Brittany Campbell, Melissa Ramlow, Naomi Willman, Kenny Ramlow and Ricky Ross.
The Stephens family requests memorials to the Rock Steady Boxing for Parkinson patients at the Putnam County Senior Center.
SANDERSON of CARTHAGE
