Sarah Fogarty Beddingfield
Sarah Lee Fogarty Beddingfield, 68, of Lillington, NC died December 25, 2017 from injuries sustained in a Christmas Eve fire at her home.
Born at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama on March 9, 1949, Sarah spent most of her childhood living on the family land in nearby Prattville. She graduated from the University of Alabama and Troy State University and did post-master’s work at Southern Connecticut State University.
A public school teacher like her mother, Sarah also had an adventurous spirit and taught for a few years in Mexico and Ecuador. She retired after 33 years of teaching middle school language, social studies, and remedial reading in Cumberland, Warren, and Jackson counties in North Carolina. She was elected teacher of the year on several occasions. Her best and most rewarding work was helping underperforming students rise to their potential. In retirement she worked at the public libraries in Fayetteville and Lillington.
Sarah was also a pastor’s wife who preferred doing the work of ministry to living in the limelight. She touched the churches where she was a member by singing in the choir, teaching thoughtful and compelling adult Sunday School classes, keeping the nursery, visiting the elderly, and being involved in mission projects from the local veterans’ hospital to disaster relief to building houses in Kenya. She has been remembered publicly as a person of compassion, kindness, and humility.
A genuinely self-giving wife and mother, Sarah is survived by her husband of 42 years, Ed Beddingfield, of Lillington; two daughters, Shannon, of New Haven, CT and Meghan, of Dallas, TX; a nephew, Rusty Fogarty, of Prattville, AL; and numerous cousins, fellow church members, coworkers, and dear friends.
She was preceded in death by her parents, J. P. and Alice Langford Fogarty; her brother, John N. Fogarty; and a nephew, Rafe Fogarty, all of Prattville.
A memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 13 at Memorial Baptist Church, 271 Leslie Campbell Ave., Buies Creek, NC 27506, with Dr. Derek Hogan and Dr. Michael Cogdill officiating. The family will receive friends in the fellowship hall after the service. Guests are invited to bring notes of their particular memories of Sarah for Shannon, who remains hospitalized and cannot attend the service. Other remembrances may be posted to the obituary at the funeral home website, www.oppfh.com.
In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Cuba Mission Fund at Memorial Baptist Church, P. O. Box 485, Buies Creek, NC 27506.
Arrangements entrusted to O’Quinn Peebles Phillips Funeral Home and Crematory of Lillington.