OBITUARY: Mettie Jane Dillehay

Mrs. Mettie Jane Dillehay age 95, a longtime resident of the Defeated Creek Community died peacefully with her son and daughter-in-law at her bedside at the Pavilion in South Carthage where she made her home since February 21, 2016. The Pavilion opened September 1, 2015 and Mrs. Dillehay began deciding which room she wanted shortly following the opening. After selling her Defeated Creek Highway farm she made the move and enjoyed every day she spent at the Pavilion with many of her acquaintances and former neighbors.

Mrs. Dillehay was pronounced deceased at 7:44 Friday evening September 20, 2024 by Gentiva Hospice of Livingston. Mrs. Dillehay is at the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home where the family will receive friends on Friday morning from 10 a.m. until leaving for the cemetery at 12:30 p.m. Graveside services and interment will be beside her husband in the Garden of the Cross at the Defeated Creek Memorial Gardens on Friday afternoon at 1 p.m. Her son, Dr. Ken Dillehay, will deliver the eulogy.

She was born Mettie Jane Anderson in the Cartwright Community on January 17, 1929 and was one of two daughters of the late Kirk Lee “Thumper” Anderson who died at the age of 63 in the early hours of December 24, 1966 at the former Carthage General Hospital and Lucille Blanche Sutton Anderson who died at the age of 76 on January 3, 1983. Her only sister, Barbara Ann Anderson Williams, preceded Mrs. Dillehay in death on February 28, 2021 at the age of 74.

For a point of historical perspective, her father’s funeral was the first funeral conducted at the newly constructed Cornwells Chapel Missionary Baptist Church on Christmas Day 1966 following the church relocation from McClures Bend Lane to Defeated Creek Highway because of the construction of the Cordell Dam and the future impounding of Cordell Hull Lake in the Spring of 1973. She was a member of the 1946 graduating class at Smith County High School and attended Falls Business School in Nashville for two years following her graduation and marriage.

Mrs. Dillehay was saved at the age of 13 and in November of 1945 was baptized into the full fellowship of the Cornwells Chapel Missionary Baptist Church where she remained a member until her death. She was the widow of Defeated Creek Community native, the late James “Teefer” Dillehay who died Valentine’s Day February 14, 2009 at the age of 78. They were united in marriage in Rossville Georgia on December 11, 1947 by Justice of the Peace, Russell Crowe.

Mrs. Dillehay was elected Smith County Circuit Court Clerk in August of 1966 and served in that capacity from September 1, 1966 until August 30, 1978, for a total of twelve years of service to the citizenry of Smith County.

Surviving is her son, Dr. Ken Dillehay and wife Becky of Wichita, Kansas; two grandsons, Dr. James Kendall Dillehay II and wife Camiell, Taylor Campbell Dillehay, J.D.; three great grandchildren, Vivian Blythe Dillehay, Audrey Blanche Dillehay and James Kendall Dillehay III all of Wichita, Kansas. The Dillehay family requests memorials to the Cornwells Chapel Missionary Baptist Church.