Grace Calhoun Starling

Grace Calhoun Tucker Starling, whom everyone lovingly called "Sug", entered the Church Triumphant after a brief illness. Sug was born in Georgetown in Putnam County Florida, the third of seven children. Her parents, John Calhoun Tucker and Lula Mae Long Tucker, came from entirely different worlds and Sug became equally at home in both. Roots on the Tucker side went back to South Carolina and the settled antebellum planter class. From those roots came a unique relationship to her dignified Confederate veteran grandfather that, at an early age, gave Sug a sense of history. On her mother's side, The Longs were yeomen farmers who migrated from North Carolina to farm land that is now within the Ocala National Forest. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings later immortalized Sug's grandfather, Calvin Long, as the boy Jodie in her classic 1939 novel of Florida frontier life, The Yearling. Sug's parents moved to Miami when she was in her infancy. Her memories of her father, who died of a lingering illness when she was eleven, are tender and happy. From her widowed mother she, along with her sisters, learned the work ethic and self-reliance that stayed with her all her life. She graduated from Miami Edison High School as one of only two in the family to do so. Before it was fashionable for women, she joined the workforce so to help provide for her younger siblings. Family life and the strong influence of the local Methodist Church shaped her strong convictions and were the determining influences of her life. In 1939 she married Ira Carroll Starling whose career in finance took him to West Palm Beach, where Carroll Jr. was born and then to Orlando, where she gave birth to Bruce, Susan and Alan. Sug got a taste of the military when her husband entered the Navy in 1944. In 1945 the family relocated to join him in Norfolk, Virginia. This was the only time she resided outside Florida. After the war Carroll went into the automobile business working, first as a general manager in Ocala, then in his own successful dealership in Kissimmee. When, in 1975, after 15 years of operating a successful automobile dealership in Kissimmee, her husband died suddenly, she became the corporation's vice president, a role she held for the rest of her life. Today, three of her grandsons currently operate Chevrolet dealerships in central Florida. Over the years she was an active reader of history and an eager traveler, journeying to the Virgin Islands, Europe and the British Isles, Virginia, Hawaii, New England, and California. She especially enjoyed family gatherings and never missed an opportunity to share in the milestone events of each new generation. Her oldest grandson recently described her as the model example of the "greatest generation." As the matriarch of an extended family, she leaves to cherish her memory her four children and their spouses, ten grandchildren and their spouses, nineteen great-grandchildren, and numerous in-laws by marriage on three continents and in five nations. Sug will be remembered for her energy and enthusiasm, her gratitude for every little kindness, her ability, in all situations, to see the silver lining, and her love for her children, their spouses, their children and their children's children. In lieu of flowers, the family respectfully requests that donations be made in Sug's name to a charity of choice or to Vitas Hospice, 2201 Lucien Way, Suite 100, Maitland, FL 32751 A Memorial Service will be held for Grace Starling at 11 am, Friday, March 18th at the Osceola Memory Gardens Funeral Home, Kissimmee with a reception to follow in the funeral Home. Arrangements under the care of Osceola Memory Gardens Funeral Home & Crematory, 1717 Old Boggy Creek Road, Kissimmee, FL 34744 (407) 847-2494 online condolences can be give at: www.osceolamemgds.com

Grace Calhoun Starling

March 12, 1916 - March 14, 2016