WILMINGTON — Sue Sellars Hammonds, 71, died Saturday, April 6, 2019, at Lower Cape Fear Hospice & LifeCare Center.
She was born Feb. 15, 1948, in Wilmington, the fourth daughter of the late Richard “Tot” Sellars and Edna Penney Sellars. She was also preceded in death by her sister, Norma S. Grabenstein; and former husband and father of her children, Charles Hammond.
She graduated New Hanover High School, Class of 1966, and received a B.S. degree from UNCW in 1971. She was a teacher at Acme Delco Middle School, Evergreen Elementary School and Southeastern Community College. She served as the bookkeeper for Farrar Transfer and Storage Company.
After teaching for about seven years, she started her family and became a mother and homemaker while living in Goldsboro.
She was a member of Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church, where she became the church historian once she returned to Wilmington. Throughout her life, she was a dedicated member by teaching Sunday school, playing the flute during services, and known for her diligent research on Charlie Jones Soong. She was interviewed by UNC-TV for a documentary of Soong’s life and connection with the church. She traveled to China in 2015 to visit the home and now museum of Charlie Soong.
Surviving are her daughter, Christy Moore of Lake Waccamaw; son, Ricky Hammond, and his wife, Carrie, of Chadbourn; three grandchildren, Alex Moore, Abby Moore and Gabel Hammond; two sisters, Mary Hammond, and her husband, Tom, of Athens, Georgia, and Jean Rawls of Wilmington; two nephews, Phillip Hammond and Whit Rawls; and one niece, Laura Holdych.
The family will receive friends from 1 to 2 p.m., Thursday, April 11, at Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church, 409 S. Fifth Ave., Wilmington, followed by a funeral service at 2 p.m. Interment will follow in Oakdale Cemetery.
Share online condolences with the family at Andrews Mortuary & Crematory.
