Sarah "Sally" Stephenson

Sarah “Sally” Dickinson Stephenson, 86, went to be with her Lord and Savior on January 1, 2019, very shortly after the arrival of the new year but following a lengthy decline in her health. She passed quietly and with dignity in her home in Columbia, MO, with loved ones at her side. Those closest to her can attest to the uncommon grace and strength she displayed in her final days, months, and years as she lived on beyond all expectation.

Entering the world on Leap Day, February 29, 1932, Sally got off to a rare and auspicious start. The only child of Norfleet and Eldred Dickinson, Sally was a seventh generation Washingtonian and a descendant of John Dickinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. She grew up in Spring Valley not far from Georgetown which her ancestors helped settle. Her playmates were often her cousins who remember how she set an example for others with her elegance and grace. Sally took piano lessons from her grandmother and developed the ability to play songs by ear, a talent that served her well at social gatherings throughout her life. She went to public school while her father enlisted in the Navy and went off to fight in World War II. She attended Woodrow Wilson High School and then became the first in her family to travel west of the Mississippi River so that she could enroll, sight unseen, at Stephens College.

At Stephens Sally took a sociology class taught by Dorothy “Marty” Martin, kindling a friendship that would grow into a nearly familial bond and span six decades. Upon graduation from what was then a two-year school, Sally attended Northwestern University where she became a member of the Delta Gamma sorority. She returned to Columbia and completed her B.A. in sociology at the University of Missouri.

As a young woman in mid-Missouri, Sally was busy and very capable. The former Miss Stephens was offered a modeling contract but instead chose to go to work as a recruiter for Stephens College, traveling the rust belt and the northeast. She then was invited to join the firm Robnett-Putnam Interiors where she showed her sizable talent as an interior decorator.

It was at a party in 1958 where Sally met the love of her life, a young but accomplished surgeon at the MU Medical Center (now University Hospital), Dr. Hugh Edward Stephenson, Jr. Between Hugh’s well-documented devotion to his profession, his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, and his drop-kicking hobby, Sally competed for attention. It took a few years, but not surprisingly she won out and on August 15, 1964, they were married at Georgetown Presbyterian Church.

Sally continued to involve herself, in a variety of ways, in her adopted community. She served on the Stephens College Board of Trustees, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, Wyatt Guest House, and was a member of Kings Daughters and Colonial Dames. But without question following marriage, Sally’s greatest and highest priority was her family — supporting her husband in his medical career and philanthropy, and raising two wonderful children, Ted and Ann.

Family was everything to Sally, and that encompassed quite a lot — any friend of the family, to her was family, and to be welcomed with open arms. If her kids or grandkids were involved, so was she. Sally traveled to an endless number of tennis tournaments with Ted and Ann, to Oklahoma for her grandkids’ dance recitals and t-ball games, and became a diehard Mizzou Tiger fan watching game after game with her ‘Mr. Missouri’ husband. And, for Sally, there was no better way to celebrate family and friends than with a good party, cocktails not optional.

The other great joy in Sally’s life, even after settling in the Midwest was vacationing in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware something which she first did as a child. The cottage that her parents acquired in the mid-1960’s, in Henlopen Acres, became an annual destination for Sally, Hugh, the kids and the family dog (Rusty, Loch, Buck, Beaches, and Buddy). Long drives from Columbia to Rehoboth in the family station wagon were summer staples and Sally found that her love of Sussex County’s warm summer breezes, seafood and salt air easily transferred to her family.

Sadly, it was in Rehoboth in the summer of 2012 that she lost her dear Hugh following a decade-long bout with Parkinson’s. Sally’s own health had been on the decline and thus began a six-and-a-half-year journey, the end of which seemed often to draw near, only for Sally with a wry smile still creasing her face, to blithely shoo it away.

It is impossible to talk about Sally’s final years without noting the tremendous love coming from so many quarters that helped sustain her. The significance of the love and support she felt from her son Ted cannot be overstated. Ted devoted his life to caring, first, for his father and then his mother. Daughter Ann was also a consistent source of love and support, along with her husband and their two children. Sally had numerous devoted caregivers over the years, but Julia Warren occupied a most special place in Sally’s heart. Jules spent parts of several summers in Delaware so that Sally could continue to enjoy the beach even when she no longer could care for herself and her quality of life was greatly diminished. Jules could not only get Sally to eat, she could get her to smile, and there was nothing like Sally’s smile.

Sally was preceded in death by her husband, Hugh E. Stephenson, Jr. She is survived by her two children, Ted Stephenson, of Columbia, MO and Ann Cameron and her husband Alex, of Edmond, OK, and two grandchildren, Sarah and Scott Cameron. The family would like to thank caregiver Julia Warren and Hospice Compassus for their loving and kind care throughout Sally’s illness. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Deanship, MU School of Medicine, One Hospital Drive, Columbia, MO 65212. A funeral service will be held Saturday, January 5, 2019, at 10 o’clock in the morning at the First Baptist Church in Columbia, Missouri. A reception will follow.