OBIT: Mrs. Mary Sue Huddleston Vetter
Mrs. Mary Sue Huddleston Vetter
Carthage native, Mrs. Mary Sue Huddleston Vetter of Hixson near Chattanooga was pronounced dead on arrival at 10:12 p.m. Eastern Standard time, Saturday evening August 4, 2018, at the Memorial Health Care System E. R. in Hixson. She suffered from congestive heart failure and died enroute to the hospital. Mrs. Vetter was 82.
Bro. Floyd Massey, pastor of the Gordonsville United Methodist Church, officiated at the 1 p.m. Thursday afternoon August 9th funeral services from the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home. Burial followed in the Huddleston-Gwaltney family lot at the Baird Memorial Cemetery in the Hickman Community near her parents and brother.
Her father was former Carthage Mayor Rush Hawes Huddleston who died at the age of 90 on April 10, 1989 and her mother was Lurlie Lee Gwaltney Huddleston who died at the age of 82 on November 7, 1983. Mr. Huddleston was also owner operator of Huddleston Electric Service in Carthage.
Mrs. Vetter was one of five children and was born Mary Sue Huddleston in Gallatin on October 20, 1935 and was reared on Jefferson Avenue in Carthage.
She was preceded in death by a brother, Charles Huddleston who died November 3, 1989 at the age of 61 and infant sister who died at the age of 1 day old on December 30, 1922. Lovingly referred to by her close friends and classmates as “Tootie”, she was a 1953 graduate of Smith County High School where she studied home economics, was a member of the dramatic club and was reporter for the Spanish Club. Her junior year she was a football queen attendant.
For a while after graduating at S.C.H.S. she attended Tennessee Polytechnic Institute in Cookeville, now Tennessee Technological University.
She was united in marriage on August 29, 1958 to Humphreys County native James Robert “Bob” Vetter. The vows was at the home of then Carthage United Methodist Church pastor, the late Rev. Ewing S. Weakley.
An accomplished pianist, she played piano while a member at the Carthage United Methodist Church and after moving to Hixson played piano at the Daisy United Methodist Church, where she was a member, for over thirty years.
She was retired from the Fletcher-Bright Real Estate Co. in Hixson and after retirement was a part time educational assistant at Hixson Elementary School.
Mrs. Vetter loved her family, her Huddleston and Gwaltney roots and returned to Carthage several times a year to visit family, friends and old classmates.
A highlight in her life was when the Smith County fair was begun anew, she would attend with family and friends from as far away as Knoxville at least once each year driving about 130 miles each way from her Hixson home. Her love for the fair came from being raised within a block of the fair when it was on Carmack Avenue in Carthage.
Surviving in addition to her husband, retired T.B.I. agent Bob Vetter, of almost sixty years, are their two children, Shauna Vetter Wilson of Hixson and Jamie Vetter and wife Angie of Soddy-Daisy; four grandchildren, Chad and Callie Wilson of Hixson, Haylie Vetter, Kaylin Vetter Daughtery and husband Matt and their daughter Jovie all of Soddy-Daisy; two brothers, Jimmie Huddleston and wife Lee of the Stonewall Community and Billie Huddleston of Sweetwater, TN.
The Vetter family requests memorials to Alzheimers Tennessee.
SANDERSON of CARTHAGE
