Sandra Gale Smith

Sandra "Sandy" Gale Smith, 69, of Stanfield, NC passed away peacefully on Saturday, April 19, 2025.

Sandy was born in Mecklenburg County to the late Walter Wilbert Starnes and Ruby Mae Harper. She was married to Eddie Smith for 19 years.

Sandy worked at Craftman Fabrics for nearly 30 years until the plant shut down in 2003. She then worked at Gentry Mills for a short time before deciding to take a different career path. She went to Rowan Cabarrus Community College and became a CNA II, taking a job at Northeast Medical Center in Concord, which later became Atrium Healthcare. At Atrium, she worked in telemetry as a monitor tech. While employed there, Sandy earned the coveted Cardinal Award, which was given to healthcare technicians who consistently demonstrated the values of compassion, ability, responsibility, dedication, integrity, nobility, altruism, and loyalty. All of these things well-described Sandy as an employee.

These characteristics also described Sandy to her friends and family. She loved spending time with her family and cherished making memories by going on meaningful vacations and planning events that brought people together. She will be remembered as someone who put others first and always strived to put smiles on the faces of the people that she loved by doing something for them that they never expected or seeing that their needs were met. The best single word to describe her was "selfless".

Sandy was preceded in death, by her parents mentioned above, her sisters, Debbie Earnhardt and Billie Harrington, and her grandson, Lane Benfield.

Left to cherish her memory are her husband, Eddie Smith, her loving children, Gary "Tink" Bollinger, Jr. (with wife, Kimberly), Shannon Benfield (with husband, Brian), her sisters Terry Allman and Wanda Little, her precious grandchildren, Hunter and Shyann Bollinger, Gracie and Harrison Benfield, and her sweet great-grandson, Aalijah Bollinger, and many nieces, nephews and friends. She will be forever loved and missed.

Friends and family are kindly invited to attend the visitation on Thursday, April 24, 2025 from 12:00 – 2:00 pm at Whitley’s Funeral Home, followed by the Funeral service at 2:00 PM at Whitley's Chapel and burial at Carolina Memorial Park. Rev. Kevin Munson and Jerry Harrison will officiate