With both sorrow and gratitude, the Selbe and Stallings families announce the passing of our beloved sister, Carol Sue Stallings, of Hoxie, Kansas. Carol Sue passed away at her home on February 4, 2025, at the age of 84.
Carol Sue was born the first daughter of Harold and Goldie Selbe on August 27, 1940. Goldie and Harold raised Carol Sue, along with her sister Kathleen, in Hoxie, and Carol Sue spent her childhood with her parents, sister, and grandmother, Lauretta Edith Cooper, who lovingly cared for the girls while their parents farmed the land. The farm was a constant love in Carol Sue’s life as a young girl, and it remained her center later in her adult life.
After graduating from Sheridan Community High School, Carol Sue attended Asbury School of Nursing in Salina, Kansas. Carol Sue knew as early as second grade that she wanted to be a nurse, and told stories of going across the street to Dr. John’s office with her father, as over the years he battled chronic illnesses. She pursued that dream and graduated with her nursing degree in 1961.
While attending Asbury, Carol Sue met Charles Stallings, a young man from North Carolina who was stationed at Schilling Air Force Base. They married after her graduation from nursing school and moved to Charles’ home in North Carolina where their daughter Polly Ann was born. After five years, Carol Sue and Charles decided to return home to the farm, where they spent the following years working the land alongside Harold and Goldie, and where Carol Sue continued her love of nursing. She served and cared for others at the hospitals in Hoxie and Colby until her retirement. Her care of others, however, did not end after retirement, and she continued to care for her parents, her husband, and her daughter in the following years.
Carol and Charles suffered hardships in their lives, especially as their health declined, but their greatest heartache was the loss of their beloved daughter, Polly, who died in 2014 at the age of 50 from cancer. Charles passed away in 2015, within months of Polly’s death. After their passing, Carol Sue eventually moved into town, where she lived the last few years of her life.
Carol Sue lived her life with grit and determination. She would not quit. Her endurance, her strength, and her spirit were an example to her family of courage and perseverance. She met life head on, no matter the pain and struggle. That struggle is over now. She is finally at home with her beloved daughter and husband. We say goodbye with sorrow, knowing how deeply we will miss her, but we also say it with profound gratitude for a life well-lived.
We are grateful also for all of those friends who shared their lives with her, stood by her, cared for her, and who loved her. As you loved her, she loved you in return.
Carol Sue is survived by her sister, Kathleen Sheltra of Salina, Kansas, and sister(s)-in-law, Beth (Bobby) Johnson of Princeton, North Carolina, Lynda Gulley of Raleigh, North Carolina, brothers-in-law John (Rose) Stallings of Selma, North Carolina, and Bobby H. (Miriam) Stallings of Marietta, Georgia.
Visitation will be held at the Mickey Leopold Funeral Home at a later date.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Hospice Services of Northwest Kansas, Inc., 424 8th St., Phillipsburg, Kansas 67661, or Sheridan County Benefit Walk, Inc., P.O. Box 895, Hoxie, Kansas 67740