Obit – Mrs. Carolyn Young Denney
Mrs. Carolyn Young Denney of Lebanon and a longtime resident of the Pea Ridge Community died at 10:44 p.m. Thursday evening July 20, 2023 at the NHC on South Walnut Street in Cookeville at the age of 81 following a period of declining health. She had been a resident of NHC since June 7th.
Funeral services from the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home will be conducted Monday afternoon July 24th. Bro. Floyd Massey assisted by Bro. George Reed will officiate and burial will follow beside her husband in the Gordonsville Cemetery.
Born Carolyn Inez Young in the Vaden Community of Putnam County on December 22, 1941, she was one of two daughters and the eldest daughter of the late James Horace Young who died at the age of 90 on September 26, 2008 and Vallie Irene Winfree Young who died at the age of 94 on January 21, 2012 and was reared in the Enigma and Chestnut Mound Communities except for a short time when the family resided in Harlem, Georgia.
Mrs. Denney was the granddaughter of the late Sam Ditty Young and Virginia Frances “Jennie” Waller Young and the late Herschel and Ella Rittenberry Winfree.
Her only sister, Barbara Ann Young Harville preceded her in death on January 24, 2022 at the age of 77 following a battle with cancer.
Mrs. Denney was a 1959 graduate of Smith County High School and majored in Commercial business classes, was a member of the Beta Club and her senior year was a member of the Owl and office staff.
On August 1, 1964 in McMinnville, she was united in marriage to Hickman Community native Donald Lee Denney, who at the time of his death on January 6, 2015 at the age of 77, was the longest serving employee of the Upper Cumberland Membership Corporation where he began employment on March 17, 1959.
They had been married for fifty five years at the time of his death.
Mrs. Denney was saved and baptized at the former Jack Apple United Methodist Church in the Enigma Community, but at the time of her death was a member of the Gordonsville United Methodist Church.
Following graduation from S. C. H. S., she was first employed at the Citizens Bank in Carthage and then as the city clerk for the Town of Gordonsville.
Before her retirement she was a secretary and bookkeeper in the Smith County Executive/Smith County Mayors office. She worked for former County Executive Jack Kittrell and then for County Executive C. E. Hackett.
Surviving are her three children, Steven Denney and wife Julie of Cookeville, Rachel Denney of Cookeville, Sarah Denney Baines of Lebanon (Tony Yancy), Paden Bain of Lincoln, Nebraska; four grandchildren, Ava Baines (Bryce Booth), Parker Baines, Mary Helen Bastian and Sarah Beth Bastian; bother-in-law, Kenneth Harville of South Carthage,; her last surviving uncle, Lester Young and wife Katie of Sparta.
The Denney family requests memorials to the Gordonsville United Methodist Church.
SANDERSON of CARTHAGE
