Obit – Mrs. Ruby Boyd Craighead
Mrs. Ruby Boyd Craighead, an 85-year-old homemaker of the Four-Way-Inn Community, ended her earthly journey to be with her heavenly father with her family surrounding her bed on Saturday morning June 13, 2026 at 4:01 a.m. at the Vanderbilt-Wilson County Hospital in Lebanon where she was admitted Wednesday morning June 9th. Mrs. Craighead was suffering from pneumonia.
Funeral services from the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home were conducted on Wednesday morning June 17th at 11 a.m. with Pastor Tony Crow and Ruby’s pastor, Bro. Randall Hunt officiating. Burial followed in section two at the Ridgewood Cemetery in Carthage.
The family received friends on Tuesday June 16th from 2 p.m. until 7 p.m. at Sanderson in Carthage and again on Wednesday after 9 a.m.
The Tennessee Nurses Honor Guard performed a ceremony honoring her career at the beginning of the 11 a.m. Wednesday morning service.
Born Ruby Nell Boyd in the Wolf Creek Community of Dekalb County on November 9, 1940, she was the fifth of ten children born to the late Ernest Vernon Boyd who died as the result of an automobile accident at the age of 39 on July 28, 1951 and Sarah Geneva Whitehead Boyd who died at the age of 90 on April 14, 2003.
She was preceded in death by five siblings, Jerry Boyd who died at the age of 9 days on August 27, 1947 and Jerry’s twin brother, Jacky Boyd who died August 29, 2016 at the age of 69, Dorothy Mildred Boyd Christian who died at the age of 74 on March 10, 2006, Robbie Jean Boyd Taylor who died at the age of 64 on March 29, 2003 Leon Boyd who died at the age of 85 on October 7, 2021.
In Carthage, at the home of the late Bro. William Comstock on June 23, 1973, she was united in marriage to Difficult Community native, Kenneth Wayne Craighead.
Mrs. Craighead was a charter member of the Mt. Calvary Pentecostal Church in the Rock City Community and was saved as a young girl.
She retired in 2007 from the former Smith County Memorial Hospital where she was a surgery nurse and was employed there for over forty-two years as a very compassionate and caregiving nurse.
Surviving in addition to her husband Kenneth of almost fifty-three years are her three daughters, Susie Poindexter Enoch and husband Steve of the Hogans Creek Community, Shennia Poindexter of Carthage, Vickie Hensley Hulse and husband Mark of the Rome Community; six grandchildren, Steven Enoch, Megan Enoch Worley, Brandon Bussell and wife Heather all of the Hogans Creek Community, Robert Allen Hughes of Carthage, Jennifer Duke and husband Chris of the Horseshoe Bend Community, Jessica West and husband Josh of the Defeated Creek Community; eight great-grandchildren, Alanna Enoch, Javen Worley, Raegan Bussell, Joe Allen Duke and wife Brooke, Jackson Duke, Ava West, Paxton West, and Luke West.
The Craighead family requests memorials to the Shriners Childrens Hospital.
SANDERSON of CARTHAGE
