Joseph Stanley “Stan” Cunningham

Stan was 85, born June 18^th, 1930, deceased September 4, 2015. Post High School he was part of the occupation forces in Europe, near Frankfurt, Germany. After his stint in the Army he returned to Memphis, Mo., to marry Evelyn, his wife of 63 years. Following several years of trying his hand at farming, he moved to Kansas City in 1963 to look for work, and was followed later in the year by his wife and 3 children. They started out living in the Northeast area of KC, and moved to the Northland, where they would live in the same house for the next 53 years. He is survived by his older brother Dean, his loving wife, Evelyn, his sons, Phillip and Chris, his daughters in law, Marion and Tammy, daughter Terri, his grandchildren Kelley, Evan, Emily, and Reed, and great grandchildren Natalie and Reese. During his last 20 years he walked his neighborhood daily and got to know just about everyone, asking them questions and showing an interest in them. He kept people informed of the latest news and upcoming events concerning everyone. His work brought him in contact with Pleasant Valley Baptist Church during the late 80’s and he felt drawn to the friendliness of the people he met, thus becoming a member. Making and keeping friends was a very important aspect to him and he maintained friendship with school mates from High School throughout his life. His membership in PVBC was very rewarding and personally fulfilling, and he always loved conversing with his church family and got to know as many people as he could, just like in his neighborhood. He fulfilled his civic obligation with his work to help found and nurture the Northland Neighborhood Association. That association made it possible for Stan to modernize his home. Time well spent. He especially enjoyed the people who made that organization possible. But of all his accomplishments in life, one that he secretly enjoyed was the fact that he personally trained about 100 young men in the art of carpet installation. Although he left the Union in 1981, he left behind a solid core of men who knew what they were doing in the business he loved. Over the years he always made time to talk to and help any of those men he came in contact with. Some would suspect that many of the apprentices stuck out the training because of the cookies supplied (by Evelyn) on the last night of each session…

Everyone who ever met Stan found out real quick that he loved to talk. There weren’t many subjects that were off limits with him. Sports were his favorite, especially the Royals, and Chiefs. He knew a bit about basketball, too, and loved to reminisce about his high school days on the outside court. Politics was another favorite subject but he could talk about many subjects for hours on end and didn’t mind it when the subject changed. New faces were soon no longer strangers after a few minutes with him. He took Dale Carnegie’s course to improve his public speaking which made him more outgoing. Not many would say that he didn’t put that course to good use.

When introducing himself he loved to tell people his name was “Stan The Man” like Musial for the Cardinals (his favorite boyhood team). It was hard to find someone he didn’t like or someone that didn’t like The Man. Stan lived life like “The Man” in many ways. It just might be said that he got the most out of the god given talents he was given.

A visitation for Stan will be held at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, MO at 1:00 PM on Saturday, September 26th.  Burial will be October 3rd in Rutledge, MO at 1:00 PM.

Visits: 2