Stacy Lynn Puderbaugh

A glance across campus. A boy with long brown locks. They had never spoken, but Stacy knew. That night, the 16-year-old wrote in her diary that she had just seen the man she was going to marry.

That was Stacy. She declared something, and then she made it true.

Stacy Lynn Puderbaugh, 70, died Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, surrounded by her family. She was born July 1, 1956, in Topeka, the daughter of James Edward and Mary Suzanne Griffith. Stacy graduated from Topeka West High School in 1974.

The boy from the diary was Curtis Lee Puderbaugh. Their friends schemed to get them together, and one night, after a party, Curt walked her home and asked her out.

Five years later, Stacy set the terms: marry or move on. Curt could not imagine life without her. He proposed at Plantation Steakhouse, and that is when she showed him the diary — proof she had called it all along. They married May 14, 1977, at First Congregational Church in Topeka, and spent the next 49 years proving her right. His career took them to Washington, D.C., and Dallas before they came home to Topeka for good in 1980.

Stacy worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield for more than 10 years and later ran her own housecleaning business. Her proudest accomplishment, she had said, was raising two children into strong, independent adults with good values. Stacy was her children’s biggest advocate. She challenged them to be their best and encouraged them to chase their dreams. Even when they were being kind of the worst, she forgave easily and loved unconditionally.

With minimal complaining, Stacy shuttled kids from sports activities to school events to friend hangouts to family gatherings. She served as a PTA mom with exceptionally high standards. She never missed a soccer game or tournament, attended 13 years’ worth of dance recitals and competitions, and taught her kids to juggle life’s demands and challenges with grace. Stacy was a great listener, though she often shared advice nobody asked for.

Those who loved Stacy knew her by her generosity. She cooked for every gathering as if the guest list might double. No one left her table hungry. She could never pass up a good bargain, and her basement was proof — boxes labeled and dated with a precision that bordered on art. She played the marble game without mercy. She filled the yard with fireworks each Fourth of July. Every holiday was an excuse to bring together the people she loved.

In 2000, doctors found bladder cancer. Stacy decided she would live to see her children graduate high school. She did. Then she decided on college graduations, then on the lives and families her children were building, then grandchildren. She beat bladder cancer and later skin cancer. And she collected 26 more years, including 13 with her granddaughter Brayleigh, who had her heart.

Scrapbooking carried her through that first fight, and she filled albums with the childhoods she was determined to keep watching. Stacy and Curt found joy in yearly trips north to Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin with Jim and Suzanne. Fishing was a surprising hobby found later in life and, perhaps unsurprisingly, Stacy was a natural at it.

Pancreatic cancer came this summer. This was the one fight she couldn’t win. So she wrote the ending herself. Stacy waited until everyone she loved was with her, and then she and God chose when to rest.

Stacy is survived by her husband, Curt Puderbaugh; daughter, Ashley Puderbaugh and son-in-law, Dean Linton; son, Brad Puderbaugh and his partner, Nicole Peterson; her parents, Suzanne and Jim Griffith; grandchildren, Alyssa and Gaige Peterson and Brayleigh Puderbaugh; and several nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her sister, Cinny Bowen.

Join us to celebrate Stacy’s life at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, at Mount Hope Funeral Chapel, 4700 SW 17th St. in Topeka, with a family greeting at 12:30 p.m. Inurnment will follow at Mount Hope Cemetery.

Stacy once wrote her future in a single sentence, about a boy she had never met. Then she lived a life bigger than anything she could have predicted. She got every single bit of it, and more.

Instead of flowers, donations to the American Cancer Society in Stacy’s memory would mean the world to her family.