Sue Belk Lampley

Sue Ellen Belk Lampley was born a strong-willed farm girl to Ruth Haigler Belk and Uriah Tilden Belk on May 15,1953. She and her three older sisters, Barbara, Mary Lou, and Libby, grew up shucking corn, baptizing cats, slamming screen doors, and living with the rambling freedom of another time. Sue Ellen, otherwise known as Susie or Grammy (as she would later be called), was a devout Christian and devoted herself to Sunday School, religious studies, and her family. She would soon meet her life-long partner, Sidney Joe Lampley, who was a dashing young man recently out of Vietnam service. They fell in love and were wed on Feb. 16, 1975.

If there were anything to define Susie, it is that she is a fighter. At the age of 3, she was run over by a car, on Hwy 218. The doctors told her father the broken babe could not live, but on that day in 1956, Susie began an argument against Death that would last her entire life as she stood strong and endured. Susie survived that crippling car accident, in which she had to learn how to walk, talk, and even eat again over the course of more than a year. It is with this strength that Susie launched, eventually, into her teenage and adult life- yearning for freedom but drawing close to the roots of home. She loved Motown, the Beatles, her friends and her church, and then she fell in love with Sidney Joe.

As time turned on, Susie would become mother to three girls, Ramona Leigh, Amanda Jo, and Anna Michelle. In the early days, Susie would ride bikes with her young family, spend Saturday mornings cleaning the house to Motown, and keep score for T-ball while plying the kids with oranges. She loved watching her kids in sports, came to every tennis match or softball game, and would fight like a cat for their success. She loved sweet tea, Bojangles biscuits, and she shepherded her family to church on Sundays and Wednesdays, while comforting her daughters’ fears at night. She read to her girls every night. She preached the value of education and liberation, telling her girls to “go to college”, “get the highest education you can”, and “travel the world,” before getting married- instilling in us a dream that the adventurous side of Susie never quite realized, except in her books. She believed that education was the key to unlocking freedom.

But Sue Ellen’s body did not align with her dream of seeing the world and climbing mountains. As a teenager she could feel the burning in her feet that would later manifest as severe rheumatoid arthritis. The disease would curl her fingers, swell her knees, and bend her spine. She endured her painful body and cared for her mother, and then her father, as their own bodies failed.

Susie would later be diagnosed with cancer, not once but twice, she battled chemo and infections, she stared death in the face, warning: No, not today. A decade later, Susie would fall to infection again, and again, stare death in the face and not yield. In the summer of 2022, we moved Susie’s frail body home, for what we were sure were her final days. They said she would never survive, but her husband cared for her and nurtured her, and she said again, No Death, Not Today.

The story of our mom and dad is one of survival. Sidney would look to her to say, Susie, I love you, and she would say, I love you too. Their lives became intertwined- All he ever sought was her love, which was always there.

Susie loved her kids and wanted them to climb mountains she could not. Grammy adored her grandchildren, Kierra, Maia, Indira, and Naomi, and what they know of her is her story, that she defiantly stood in the face of death more times that can be told. She loved books, she encouraged her daughters to find the freedom that rests in knowledge of the laws of men and the divinity of God. She traveled despite her setbacks, and as we set her free to go in peace, we know she is climbing mountains in glory, free from the pain she endured much of her life.

Susie’s spirit will live on in us, as we remember her fiery strength and her devotion. Her living family includes her devoted husband, Sidney Joe Lampley, her daughters, Ramona Leigh Lampley, Amanda Jo Lampley, and Anna Michelle Lampley, her sons-in-law Kaidan Nguyen, Eric Gettman, and Scott Manktelow, and her beloved granddaughters, Kierra, Maia, Indira, and Naomi. She is also survived by Mary Lou Starnes and Libby Long, her loving sisters who cared for her and for us, as we were their own. Susie taught her girls that they come from a long line of women whose strength is of steel and dirt. She joins her parents, Uriah and Ruth Belk, and her older sister, Barbara Totty, in heaven.

We hope you will celebrate Susie’s life by listening to “My Girl” (The Temptations), planting marigolds, or even a hike. Donations may be made in her name to Online Donations - St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or Girl Up | Ways to Support . We will hold a celebration of life at Hopewell Baptist Church, Wednesday April 22nd, at 3:00 (visitation); 4:00 (service) at 420 Hopewell Church Rd.