Leone McPherson Stephens Hickey, entered the presence of the Lord on May 16, 2010. The cherished and only child of Ida and Claude McPherson, she was born in Charlotte on August 8, 1922. She attended Berryhill School from 1st thru 12th grades.
In 1941 she married George H. “Buck” Stephens, Jr. Buck served in World War II and the Korean War. They both went to work for and retired from the Mecklenburg County Health Department. Leone was the Health Department’s Employee of the Year twice and runner-up for the entire city once.
Wanda and Brad were born to them. In 1956 they and their two small children moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, for Buck to take a job with the Alaska Department of Health, teaching health sanitation in northernmost Eskimo villages.
Buck died in 1989. Leone had a happy and very brief marriage to Warren Hickey. He died suddenly soon after their marriage in 1994. Marty Hunt is his only child.
In addition to Buck and Warren, Leone was preceded in death by her parents and a granddaughter, Amy Stephens Pardue.
She leaves behind her two children; Wanda Birmingham and her husband, Bill of Matthews and Brad and his wife, Susie of Huntersville; grandchildren, Trip Birmingham (St. Petersburg, FL), April Birmingham (Matthews), Erin Salas and her husband Anthony (Matthews), Candie Goodwin and her husband Robert (Iron Station), grand-son-in law, Tim Pardue and six great-grandchildren, Bobby Goodwin, Sarah Goodwin, Anna Leone Salas, Brick Salas, Gavin Pardue and Brantley Pardue.
A service to celebrate her life will be held at 11:00 am, Wednesday, May 19, 2010, at Hopewell Presbyterian Church. Interment will be in the Church cemetery. The family will receive friends following the interment.
Memorials may be made to Hopewell Presbyterian Church, 10500 Beatties Ford Road, Huntersville, NC 28078.
