WOODLAND, NC – Dr. John Hampton Stanley, age 92, of Woodland passed away on Saturday, March 2, 2019 at Vidant Roanoke-Chowan Hospital in Ahoskie.

Dr. Stanley was born on January 12, 1927 in Marion, SC to Lawrence Merriman and Irene Cato Stanley. He graduated from Conway High School in South Carolina in 1944 and served in the US Infantry from 1945 -1947. Dr. Stanley graduated from the Citadel in Charleston, SC in 1950 and from the Medical College of South Carolina 1954. He completed his general internship at Greenville Memorial Hospital in South Carolina in 1955 and opened his private medical practice in Woodland in 1955 and worked there for 64 years. At the time of his death, Dr. Stanley was still practicing.

He served as medical director at Roanoke Chowan Human Services Center for 27 years and worked at Northampton County Health Department from 1955-2016. A lifetime member of the American Medical Association and the North Carolina Academy of Family Medicine, Dr. Stanley was also a former member of the Ethics Committee of the North Carolina Medical Board.

He was a member of the Woodland Volunteer Fire Department for 44 years, a member of the Pendleton Blue Lodge AF and AM #418, and Lay Minister for the Woodland Methodist Church.

Dr. Stanley was Mayor of Woodland for 30 years and was the recipient of the North Carolina Order of the Long Leaf Pine.

Dr. Stanley recognized mental illness as a medical condition decades before most of the medical community. He was a leader in establishing quality mental health services in the area for those in need from the late 1950s to present day.

Dr. Stanley was preceded in death by his wife of 60 years in 2013, Geneva Cheatham Applewhite; his sister, Elizabeth Friggle; his infant sister, Helen Stanley; and his brothers, Lawrence “L.M.” Stanley, Julius Stanley, and Hubert Stanley.

He is survived by his daughters, Geneva “Gen” Harrell and husband Stevie, and Dixie Harrell and husband Paul; his sister, Betty Ann Conner; his grandchildren, London Harrell, John Harrell, Hunter Harrell, Arch Harrell, Brodie Harrell and wife Megan, and Davis Harrell; his special daughter, Beckisue Joyner and husband Dan; and many nieces and nephews.

Dr. Stanley was laid to rest at Woodland Cemetery on Monday, March 4, 2019.

Memorial donations may be made to the Woodland Volunteer Fire Department, P.O. Box 502, Woodland, NC 27897 or to the Masonic Home for Children at Oxford, 600 College Street, Oxford, NC 27565.