Susan O'Neal Pitts

Susan O’Neal Pitts, 79, of Fredonia, Alabama, died August 20, 2026.

At the center of Susan’s life was her expansive and unwavering love for her family. She was especially devoted to her beloved husband, Mike, who loved her dearly. She celebrated the lives and accomplishments of those she cherished and offered constant encouragement and support. Her grandchildren held an especially joyful place in her life. To them she was simply Gigi.

Susan delighted in her home in Fredonia where, for more than forty years, she cared for and welcomed others into the family’s 1897 farmhouse. Christmas and Fourth of July gatherings brought family and friends together there for many years. She took pleasure in good conversation, games, travel, her flower garden, and having people she held dear around her.

Born and raised in Valley, Alabama, Susan was a proud member of the Valley High School Class of 1965, serving as class secretary. She remained close to many classmates throughout her life and helped organize their class reunions. Those lifelong friendships brought her great happiness.

Susan earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from Auburn University and pursued additional graduate study toward a doctorate. After working as a social worker in West Point, Georgia and teaching at Valley High School, she began a career of more than 30 years at Southern Union State Community College in 1975.

A teacher at heart, Susan taught English at Southern Union and later chaired the Language and Fine Arts Department, helped lead academic planning and accreditation, and served as Dean of Academic Affairs. In 1996, she received the State of Alabama Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Member. Southern Union also gave Susan some of her closest and most enduring friendships which she treasured long after retirement.

In 2004, Susan received a life-saving organ transplant. She remained deeply grateful to the donor and donor family whose generosity she called a “gift of life.” That gift gave her more than two decades to live fully — with family and friends, at home and in her garden, and traveling to interesting destinations.

Susan is survived by her husband of nearly 49 years, Michael Pitts; her sons, Jason Strength of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, and Joey Strength and his wife, Deanie Strength, of Savannah, Georgia; her grandchildren, John Frank Strength of Denver, Colorado, Stella Strength of Washington, D.C., Autumn Strength of Boston, Massachusetts, and Nell Strength of Northampton, Massachusetts; John Frank and Stella’s mother, Laurel Strength of Signal Mountain, Tennessee; her sister, Janice O’Neal Kirby of Valley, Alabama; her nieces, Krissi Tharp and Lesley Hadaway, both of Valley, Alabama; and her beloved Baldwin and O’Neal cousins and extended Pitts family.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Frank and Hazel O’Neal, and her brother, Frankie O’Neal.

Susan will be remembered as a gifted educator, a loyal friend, a gracious host, and a loving and ever-supportive wife, mother, sister, cousin, and Gigi.

Among the papers Susan kept was the poem “To Those I Loved”, with a line especially fitting for someone who found such pleasure in her garden: remember me “when flowers bloom.”

A memorial service celebrating Susan’s life will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, 2026, at Valley-Point Funeral Home, 1011 N. Lanier Ave., Lanett, Alabama. The family will receive friends beginning at 1:00 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made in Susan’s memory to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), in gratitude for the gift of organ donation that gave her twenty-two additional years with those she loved. Donations may be made online at unos.org.