Susanne Whatley Anderson

Mrs. Susanne Whatley Anderson went home to be with her Lord on October 14, 2025 after a brief illness.
Susanne was born in Rome on October 19, 1938. She was the daughter of the late Seaborn Newton Whatley and the late Gertrude Savage Whatley. She was preceded in death by husbands Doyle Wayne Woodall, Sr. and Grover H. Anderson, and a brother, John Wilson Whatley.
Susanne was a graduate of Model High School and attended the University of Georgia before marrying D.W. Woodall and moving to Atlanta where she was an executive secretary. She later moved back to Rome and finished her degree in Early Childhood Education at Berry College. Then she moved to Bowdon, Georgia to complete a master's degree in special education at the University of West Georgia. Susanne was a much-loved teacher of special needs children for the next twenty plus years before retiring. She met and married Grover Anderson in Atlanta and they moved to his family's multi-generational farmstead in Pike County to restore it and make it prosper. Most of her years in Special Education were spent in the Spalding and Pike County school systems.
After retiring from teaching, she moved back to her family's farm in the Shannon community and rejoined Enon Baptist Church where she grew up. She especially enjoyed her Sunday school class and the bible studies she attended there. Ever energetic and busy, she looked for new professional worlds to conquer and decided to renew her secretarial skills at what was then Coosa Valley Technical College. During her training, she was hired in the Adult Education Department as a secretary and worked for several more years among a group of women who became life-long friends.
Susanne was a very artistic person who excelled in all creative endeavors. She had a distinctive knack for home decoration and design, with a wonderful eye for color. She enjoyed drawing and painting, and adult coloring became one of her greatest joys in her later years. But of all her creative outlets, flowers and gardening were her passion. She spent as many hours as she could manage outdoors tending her beautiful gardens. They were her happy place.
Survivors include her children D.W. (Chip) Woodall, Jr. (Elaine), Teri Woodall Pratt, stepdaughters Denise Anderson Milby (Lee), and Susan Anderson Hawthorne (Steve); Grandchildren, Amanda Erwin Corbin, Jamee Woodall Staud (Kory), Jacob Whatley Woodall, Jessie Anderson Milby, Rebecca Elizabeth Milby, and Virginia Hawthorne; Great Grandchildren, Ryder Corbin and Maverick Staud; her brother Dr. Seaborn J. Whatley (Kay), sister-in-law Cherry Whatley, and numerous nieces and nephews.
The family will receive friends at Mrs. Susanne residence, 197 Plainville Road NE, Rome, GA 30161 on Sunday, October 19, 2025, from 3:00 pm until 5:00pm. Interment will follow at a later date in Salmon Cemetery.
Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, North Chapel, is honored to serve the family of Mrs. Susanne Whatley Anderson.