Sudie Mae Smith O’Neal

Sudie Mae Smith O’Neal, 86, passed away Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at Brookwood Hospital in Birmingham after a brief illness. She was born in Chilton, Clarke County, Alabama on July 10, 1929, the third of three children born to Sidney Smith and Lula Cassity Smith. After graduating as valedictorian from Grove Hill High School in 1948, she worked as a legal secretary in Grove Hill. It was there she met her future husband, Oliver O’Neal, who worked as a geologist for an oil and gas exploration company.

After their marriage in Grove Hill on August 1, 1954, they briefly lived in Lafayette, Louisiana where Oliver completed his Civil Engineering degree at Southwestern Louisiana. In 1959, they moved to Mobile, Alabama where she lived until recently. Sudie was a long term, active member of Cottage Hill Baptist Church and for many years taught Sunday School to preschoolers. She worked as a secretary for Moore Business Forms in Mobile for many years prior to her retirement. In later life, always regretting the opportunity to go to college, she enrolled at Spring Hill College in Mobile, attending classes at night while working full-time, and received her Bachelor of Arts in 1989. Her interests included her family, gardening, travel, community work and her church. She also had an avid interest in genealogy, interviewing members of her family and searching for records at various courthouses, and was a proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

She was preceded in death by her parents, brother, Walter Gray Smith, sister Evie Smith, and her husband Oliver Benjamin O’Neal, Jr.

She is survived by her daughter Dr. Colleen Sanders (Dr. Paul William), granddaughters Dr. Rachel Lee (Brandon) and Sarah Weirich (Justin) and five great-grandchildren, Zane, Mia, Tristan, Lucas, and Ryan. She will be remembered as a woman truly dedicated to her family and will be greatly missed.

Graveside services will be a Midway Baptist Cemetery on Thursday, February 25 at 1 PM. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to her Sunday School class, the Joy Belles, to aid in their charitable work, c/o Cottage Hill Baptist Church, 4255 Cottage Hill Road, Mobile, AL, 36609.

Arrangements by O’Bryant Chapel Funeral Home in Thomasville, AL

All obituaries taken from the website of the corresponding funeral home unless otherwise noted.