Lauren Elizabeth "Beth" Stafford

Lauren Elizabeth (Beth) Stafford, beloved wife, mother, and grandmother, died at her home in Pittsboro on November 17, three months before her 61st birthday. She is survived by her husband of 26 years, James Stafford, her mother, Patricia Garrett, her daughters, Mandy Hall and Jessie Stafford-Langham, and her grandson, Will.

Beth loved attending Hurricanes games with her husband, Jim, and annual family beach trips. Her family plans to gather at the beach next year as usual, where they will scatter Beth’s ashes into the ocean.

Born in Denver, Colorado, Beth was a proud graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill. A woman of many talents and skills, in the early 1990s Beth worked in the marketing department of the US office of TV-Ontario (now TVO), an educational television network serving the Canadian province of Ontario. In that role, she traveled all over Canada and the United States to market the programs offered by her employer.

Seeking new challenges, she later earned a massage therapy diploma from the Body Therapy Institute in Siler City, NC, and worked as a massage therapist for a number of years.

When Beth discovered how much she enjoyed gardening and learning about North Carolina’s native plants and animals, she set about to learn as much as she could as quickly as she could while assisting a number of avid gardeners needing help in the Chatham County area.

Beth took classes on native plants at the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. She became a Master Gardener volunteer with the Chatham County Extension Service. She frequently attended Piedmont Naturalists Meetups, where she soon became the person most likely to know the name of whatever plant, insect, bird, etc. the group discovered on their outings.

She was planning to deepen her knowledge of regional natural history early next year after being accepted into the NC Master Naturalists, a program for which she had to apply for one of the limited openings. In her application, she was asked to describe the issues that concerned her the most. Her answer: human blindness to the natural world, native habitat loss and fragmentation, and the effects of excessive human waste on the environment.

Beth’s concerns about waste led her to complete Chatham County’s Waste and Recycling Enthusiast Program, which involved attending a series of classes followed by opportunities to share her knowledge via community engagement events.

Not content to merely learn facts about the NC natural world, in 2022, Beth began attending Open Studio art classes taught by Emma Skurnick in Bynum, NC. She joined a weekly class of eight women, where she learned to paint the subjects she loved the most – native animals and plants.

Over the years, Beth collected life-long friends that shared parts of her life’s journey. From her TV-Ontario days, she maintained friendships with Gwen and Vicky. During her years working as a gardener, everyone she worked with became a friend, including Portia, Sherry, and Catherine. Through the Piedmont Naturalists Meetup, she became fast friends with Von. Beth’s gardening friend, Sherry, was also one of the art students in Beth’s classes with Emma Skurnick.

That list just scratches the surface. Beth made friends wherever she went. She loved Pittsboro and Chatham County. She never tired of seeking out new opportunities to deepen her knowledge of local flora and fauna. As her friend, Von, so aptly put it, Beth “was uniquely observant about this place, seeing beauty and feeling connection in everything.”

Beth’s family hopes that all who knew her will take a few moments to add their memories, photos, and videos to the Tributes page of this obituary, so that her family and many friends may learn even more about our much-loved Beth. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations in Beth’s name to be made to the American Cancer Society.

Donaldson Funeral Home & Crematory is honored to serve the Stafford family.