Sue W. McCanless

Sue was born on March 22nd, 1947, in Litchfield, IL to Helena and Jimmy Webb. She received her bachelor’s degree in education from Memphis State University and taught kindergarten for 30 years in Memphis City Schools. On December 27th, 1968, she married Dempsey Wayne McCanless and had two twin daughters, lost shortly after birth, and one son Jonathan Dempsey.

Sue had a love for nature, a passion for horticulture and combing the beaches of the Pacific Northwest, and the Christmas holidays. She built flower and vegetable gardens outdoors and grew numerous exotic orchids indoors with a green thumb inherited from her mother. The enjoyment of multiple vacations each year with her loving sister and lifelong best friend Betsy to the Oregon beaches was established in her middle age. Their travels centered around Yachats and extended throughout the many other small beach towns of the area where they rock hounded for agates, shells, and washed-up treasures that most others may have considered trash. Her love of Christmas was unmatched and demonstrated with both modern and antique decorations and ornaments. She complimented a small, vintage tree that stayed up all year long in her family’s home with numerous live and artificial trees adorned with a menagerie of ornaments and lights, some of which were handed down through generations.

Sue is preceded in death by her brother Mark, his son Atticus, and sister Kathy and is survived by her loving husband of 54 years Dempsey, her son Jonathan, daughter-in-love Susan, sisters Betsy and Lynn, their children Steven, Jessie, Shayla, and Elora, niece Hephzibah, nephew Mathew, and grand-nephew Adrian.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be made to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

The family will receive friends Monday, March 6, 2023 from 1:00 p.m. up until a memorial service at 2:00 p.m. at Memphis Funeral Home and Memorial Gardens, 3700 North Germantown Parkway, Bartlett, TN 38133.

A private committal will follow services.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.MemphisFuneralGermantownParkway.com for the McCanless family.