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OBIT: Mr. Thomas M. Cox, Jr.

Mr. Thomas M. Cox, Jr.

Dixon Springs native Thomas Cox Jr. died at 10:12 a.m. on Thursday morning, May 16, 2019 at his Skyview Drive home in Columbia under the special care of Compassus Hospice following a period of declining health. He was 91.

Funeral services were conducted at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon Nay 19th from the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home with his pastor, Eld. Rickey Brooks officiating. Interment was in the Cox family lot in the West section at Dixon Springs Cemetery.

Born Thomas Maxwell Cox Jr. in Dixon Springs on September 22, 1927, he was one of two children of retired longtime Dixon Springs Community merchant, Thomas Maxwell Cox Sr., who died February 26, 1981 at the age of 83, and Allie Novella Gann Cox, who died on March 5, 1994 at the age of 96.

He was also preceded in death by his only sibling, Rebecca Cox Cutrell, who died on April 26, 2001 at the age of 79.

In Lebanon on December 22, 1962, he was united in marriage to Pauline Gulley who preceded him in death on December 1, 2009 at the age of 83 following almost 47 years of marriage.

Two children preceded him in death, a son, Jimmy Mitchell, died on August 14, 2015, and a daughter, Penny Atnip, died on January 27, 2014.

Mr. Cox left high school at the end of the 1944 school year to join the United States Army during World War II. Following his service he returned to Carthage High School, now Smith County High School, for the 1947-1948 school years where he majored in Agriculture, played football and basketball before his graduation in 1948.

He was employed in the oil and gas pipeline industry beginning his career in construction and later was elevated to a position over inspections and retired with total service of over 40 years of service with the Texas Eastern Pipeline Corporation.

Mr. Cox was saved at an early age and was baptized into the full fellowship of the Maces Hill Missionary Baptist Church where he remained a faithful member.

Surviving are three children, James Cox & wife Paula of Columbia, Jenny Vinson & husband Delmaine of Mount Sterling, Kentucky, Christopher Cox & wife Susan of Columbia; a daughter-in-law, Patty Mitchell of Murfreesboro; son-in-law, Greg Atnip of Watertown; twelve grandchildren; several great and great-great-grandchildren.

SANDERSON of CARTHAGE