THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 95 and by his son, John, who died in 2020. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Linda Blackwelder MacNeil; his daughter, Marcia, spouse Ricardo Espitia, and their two sons, Timoteo and Ian; his daughter, Laura, and husband Matthew Tolbert; his daughter-in-law, Ruxandra Pond, and her two daughters, Zelda and Isadora; and his sister, Elizabeth Wells. n Stella Panagoulias Stutz Pearson, 82, retired Foreign Service secretary, passed away peacefully on May 4, 2024, in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Ms. Stutz was born in Spartià, Greece. As a child, she immigrated to the United States to reunite with her mother and two older brothers, who had fled Greece during the civil war. She grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she learned English and graduated from public school. Ms. Stutz began her career as a receptionist in a law office. After traveling to the U.S., she accepted a temporary duty assignment at the U.S. embassy in Stockholm during the Vietnam War. There, she met Marine Joseph Stutz, and they married and started a family. She joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1966 and served as a Foreign Service secretary for more than 20 years, with postings in Stockholm (1966-1968), Bonn (1985-1987), Amman (1987-1990), Tegucigalpa (1990-1992), London (1992-1994), Belgrade (1994-1996), Doha (1996-1998), Geneva (1998-2000), Washington, D.C. (2000-2002), and Miami (2002-2004). Between 1968 and 1985, she stepped away from government service to raise her children in Montana. Ms. Stutz retired from the Foreign Service in Miami in 2004. After retirement, Ms. Stutz remarried and split her time between West Virginia and Wyoming. When her second husband, John, passed, she added a home in Nevada. There, she met and married Ron Pearson, adding his hometown in Idaho to her many favorite places. Ms. Stutz was a dedicated mother and spouse, always on the lookout for social events and opportunities to help others. She and her husband Ron were faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ms. Stutz’s children all received AFSA financial aid scholarships in the 1990s. In 2010 they established the Stella Panagoulias Stutz Scholarship as a tribute to their mother. She was predeceased by her father, George; her mother, Maria; her older brothers, Peter and Gus; and her second husband, John. Ms. Stutz’s surviving family includes her husband Ron and stepson Jared; her four children, Dave (and spouse Susan), Karla (and spouse Brian), Rob (and spouse Christy), Shari (and spouse Dan), and all their families; her brother Lee (and spouse Lorraine) and his family; her first husband, Joe; and a gaggle of grand- and great-grandchildren, extended family, friends, neighbors, and members of her church community. n Susan Mary Sutton, 67, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on March 20, 2025, in hospice in Austin, Texas, after a long battle with ovarian cancer. She was born on July 12, 1957, in Norwalk, Conn., to Mary Patricia (née Driscoll) Sutton, an elementary school teacher, and Charles Quinn Sutton, a sales manager. In the early 1970s, Ms. Sutton moved to El Paso, Texas, with her mother. She was the salutatorian of the class of 1975 at Coronado High School in El Paso. Ms. Sutton earned a BA in German studies from Boston University in 1979 and an MA in German literature from Tufts University in 1983. In 1985 she married David McAuley. That year, Ms. Sutton also joined the Foreign Service. She served for 35 years. Her postings included London, Bucharest, Chisinau, Vientiane, Bangkok, Sofia, Hanoi, and Washington, D.C. She served as deputy chief of mission in Vientiane, Sofia, and Hanoi, and as political counselor in Bangkok. Ms. Sutton loved learning languages and spent more than 40 months total in various language training programs at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Va., over the course of her career. She helped open two new U.S. embassies: Tirana in 1991 and Chisinau in 1992. In Washington, from 2012 to 2014, she served as the director of the Office of Maritime Southeast Asia, overseeing relations with the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, and Timor-Leste. Previously, she served in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and as the country officer for Bulgaria and Albania. She concluded her career as a faculty member at the National War College. In 2021, Ms. Sutton and her husband retired to Austin, Texas. She was an active supporter of St. David’s Episcopal Church, KMFA, KUT and KUTX, the Harry Ransom Center, and the Austin Film Society. She became a certified voter registrar in Travis County, Texas, and could often be seen in and around the streets, bars, and festivals of downtown Austin with a clipboard and a stack of information cards, urging people to exercise their rights. Ms. Sutton was preceded in death by her brother Kevin Sutton. She is survived by her husband, David McAuley, of Austin; her brother Thomas Sutton of Southbury, Conn.; and her sister-in-law, Ellen Sutton, and nephew Colin Sutton, both of Fairfield, Conn. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Health Alliance for Austin
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