Eva Whetstone Sitton

1930 - 2018

Eva Whetstone Sitton

Atlanta, GA

Eva Whetstone Sitton, who devoted herself to raising four children and supporting her husband as he rose to prominence as a civil rights reporter and newspaper editor, died Feb. 21, 2018, at A.G. Rhodes Health & Rehab, Atlanta. Mrs. Sitton, 87, had resided at A.G. Rhodes since a bicycle accident in 2012 near her home in Oxford, Ga. She died from complications of pneumonia.

Mrs. Sitton was an elementary school librarian in public schools in Raleigh, N.C., and a substitute librarian in Oxford. She worked tirelessly on voter campaigns with the League of Women Voters in Raleigh and remained civically active during retirement in Oxford. She was a member of The History Class of 1884. She cultivated environmental and social activism in her children and grandchildren, and inspired all who loved her with mental pursuits, ghost stories, and the determination that kept her riding horses and bicycles beyond her mid-70s.

Eva McLaurin Whetstone was born June 7, 1930, in Pittsburgh, where her father, Clinton H. Whetstone, was a lawyer with the federal Prohibition Bureau. When she was young, the family settled in Atlanta, where her mother, Eva M. Whetstone, later became Assistant Dean of Women at Georgia State University.

After graduating from Girls' High School in Atlanta in 1947, Mrs. Sitton entered the University of Georgia. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1951 with a B.A. in journalism. In 1976, she earned a master's in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Mrs. Sitton worked briefly as a newspaper reporter before meeting Claude Fox Sitton, a wire service reporter, in Atlanta. They married in 1953 and followed Mr. Sitton's work. In 1955-1957, they lived in Accra, Ghana, where he worked for the U.S. Information Agency. By 1958, they were back in Atlanta, where Mrs. Sitton oversaw a growing family while her husband traveled the South, reporting on the civil rights movement for The New York Times. They later lived in Larchmont, N.Y. In 1968, he became editor of The News & Observer, in Raleigh. They retired in 1990 and the couple settled in Oxford.

Mrs. Sitton was preceded in death by her husband and her sister, Betty Jo Ballard. She is survived by her children, Lauren Lea, Clinton Whetstone (Lara), Suzanna Sitton Greene (Ben), and Claude McLaurin (Paul), and by nine grandchildren. She was buried next to her husband at Honey Creek Woodlands of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, Georgia. The family asks that memorials be made to any cause that aligns with Mrs. Sitton's interest in education, conservation and civil rights.