Cynthia Ann Speegle Hedge, 81, of Crane Hill, Alabama, died July 24, 2026. She was born December 3, 1944, in Greenville, Mississippi, the daughter of the late Clyde Speegle and Vonda Lee Reid Speegle.Born with scoliosis and braced as a girl, Cynthia decided early that nothing would slow her. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) was the verse she lived by, from the hills around Bailey Mountain to the very end.
A nurse for over four decades, she was the daughter of a World War II combat medic who became one of the region’s first paramedics. She earned her nursing degree from the University of Alabama and a dual master’s from UAB, both summa cum laude. Training in Birmingham, she volunteered to care for the injured after the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963 when others would not — “they were just as human as I was.” Her nursing carried her across four states, from Carraway Methodist Medical Center’s trauma unit to teaching nurses at Wallace State.
On April 13, 1967, she married Sherman D. Hedge Jr. at Brushy Creek Church of Christ, one of the area’s original congregations, where her father had preached — a marriage of fifty-nine years. She worshipped with many Church of Christ congregations, and even after surgeries that would keep others home, she never stopped traveling — from the Grand Canyon to Europe — with stubborn grace to the end.
She was preceded in death by her parents and by her brothers, Clyde Jerome, Darrell Lee, and Michael Timothy Speegle.
She is survived by her husband, Sherman D. Hedge Jr.; her son, Devin Hedge, and wife, Jennifer; her daughter, Janie Hedge, and partner, Jules Harmon; her sisters, Linda Faye Speegle Link and Sara Rebecca “Becky” Speegle Tyree; five grandchildren, Emma, Amelia, Nikolus, Austin, and Sherman Taylor; and three great-grandchildren.
Visitation is 9:00–11:00 a.m. Saturday, August 8, 2026, at Moss Service Funeral Home, 1901 2nd Avenue NW, Cullman, followed by an 11:00 service with eulogy by Steve Tidwell. A potluck reception follows at Speegle Point, 12:30–3:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial donations to the Nightingale Foundation (nightingalefoundation.org/donate); flowers are also welcome.
