Obit – Mrs. Opal Ray Fields
A longtime Elmwood Community homemaker, Mrs. Opal Ray Fields, transitioned to her heavenly home on Monday morning September 11, 2023 at the Pavilion Senior Living in South Carthage where she had enjoyed making her home since August 12, 2019. She was pronounced deceased by Gentiva Hospice of Cookeville at 8:58 a.m. at the age of 93. Her family was at her bedside when God called her home.
Funeral services from the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home were conducted on Thursday afternoon September 14th by her former pastor Eld. Rickey Day assisted by her present pastor, Eld. David Manning. Burial followed the 1 p.m. services beside her husband in the Garden of Gethsemane at the Smith County Memorial Gardens.
One of two daughters born to the late Roy Lee Ray who died November 24, 1989 at the age of 89 and Ina Hester Massey Ray who died July 25, 1987 at the age of 82, she was born Opalene Ray in the Maggart Community on May 29, 1930.
Her only sister, Gracie Louise Ray Hughes preceded her in death on November 16, 2015 at the age of 90.
Mrs. Fields was a 1948 graduate of Smith County High School, majored in home economics, a class she was a member of all four years, was a member of the Commercial (business) club her junior year, and the 4-H club her sophomore year.
Mrs. Fields studied education at Trevecca College in Nashville and taught 4th and 5th grades at South Carthage Elementary School and concluded her teaching career as the 3rd grade teacher, beginning in 1965, at the Forks River Elementary School
While in high school she worked for the former Cleveland Drugs in Carthage and in 1980 retired from the Dollar General Store, which was located on the west side of the square in Carthage and was owned and operated by the late Frank Paris and his wife Lorene.
Because of her outgoing personality and desire to please the customers, she was an outstanding clerk where ever she was employed.
At the Carthage United Methodist Church on February 2, 1952, she was united in holy matrimony to her soul mate, Chestnut Mound Community native Everett Lee Fields. Mr. Fields was later ordained in the Missionary Baptist faith. Eld. Fields served many churches before his death at the age of 64 on December 16, 1993.
He not only was a devoted man of God, he was a devoted and loving husband to Opal, father to Lisa, and grandfather to Adam and Stephen and father-in-law to Michael and provided well for his family.
Mrs. Fields may best be remembered by the hundreds of people who enjoyed her almost weekly poetry in the Carthage Courier, which exhibited her God given talent to formulate the right words to give much meaning to the readers.
She was saved at an early age at the Maggart United Methodist Church and was baptized into the full fellowship of the New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in the Elmwood Community where she was a respected Sunday School teacher and for many years had been a member and Sunday School teacher at the Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in South Carthage where she had moved her membership by letter.
Surviving is her only child, a daughter, Lisa Fields Overstreet and husband Michael of the Elmwood Community; two grandsons, Stephen Overstreet and wife Mary Beth Hailey Overstreet of the Tanglewood Community, Adam Overstreet and wife Jessica Thomas Overstreet also of the Elmwood Community; seven great-grandchildren, who were the joy of her life,, Hailey Raye Overstreet, Karleigh Rena Overstreet, Emma Claire Overstreet, Jesse Randolph, Kinslee Holliman, Jasmine Overstreet, Walker Edward Overstreet.
The Fields family has requested memorials be made to the Calvary Missionary Baptist Church.
SANDERSON of CARTHAGE
