Obituary of Norma Aline Stock

Norma York Stock passed away on January 21, 2020 of natural causes in Chapel Hill. She was born Norma Aline York on 25 August 1924 to the late D.D. York and Ethel Kuykendall York in Haywood County, North Carolina. Norma grew up in the North Carolina mountains with three sisters and two brothers during the Great Depression. After graduating from Bethel High Schoolin 1941, she attended Berea College in Berea, Kentucky where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Home Economics in 1947. She worked as a home economics teacher at Leaksville High School in what is now Eden, NC and also as the superintendent of the school lunchroom program for the Rockingham County Schools. While she was living there, she met her future husband, the late Rudolph (Rudy) Arthur Stock, an installer for the Automatic Electric Company. They married on August 21,1954. They had two children, Cynthia and Gregory, and moved frequently because of Rudy’s job. Eventually they settled in Durham, NC in 1966 until the late 1980s when they retired in Haywood County. Because of health issues, they moved to Chapel Hill in 2006 to be near their daughter and son-in-law. Rudy passed away in 2009 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Norma moved into a memory care facility in 2016. 

Norma’s religious faith was a central fact of her life. Wherever she lived, she became an active member in the local Southern Baptist Church. She was a member of Yates Baptist Church while she lived in Durham, and after moving back to the mountains, attended the First Baptist Church of Waynesville. 

Norma is survived by her daughter Cynthia Waszak Geary (married to Ronald Geary), her son Gregory Neal Stock (married to Jennifer Waaler Stock) her granddaughter Emily Morgan Waszak (daughter of Cynthia and first husband John Waszak and married to Aonghus Cheevers) and grandson, Maxwell Bartholomew Waszak (daughter of Cynthia and married to Deva Kirin Kaur) and a great-grand-daughter, Daisy Starlight Hewett Waszak (daughter of Maxwell). Norma is pre-deceased by her husband Rudolph Arthur Stock, her parents Ethel and D. D.York, her sisters Edith Teague, Dorothy Calhoun, and Delores Shamsedin and her brothers Lenoir and Lamar York. 

Norma’s family would like to thank all the many people who have helped care for her during her extended experience of dementia, most recently Joyce Loebsack of Triangle Senior Services, the loving staff at Chatham Ridge Assisted Living, her care team from Transitions LifeCare and members of Yates Baptist Church. 

Funeral arrangements are being made through Walker Funeral Home in Chapel Hill, NC. A visitation will be held on Sunday, January 26 at 1:30pm with a graveside service at the Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery following at 3pm. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial gifts be made to Berea College.