Cliffodean Thompson

A retired Carthage business lady, Mrs. Cliffodean Beasley Thompson succumbed to a long-term illness with her daughter and son-in-law present at 6:45 a.m. Tuesday morning August 26, 2025 at her Carmack Avenue home. She was pronounced deceased exactly two months before her 100th birthday by Gentiva Hospice of Livingston at 8:09 a.m.

Gravesides services are scheduled to be conducted on Friday afternoon August 29th at 3 p.m. Eld. Stephen Brooks will officiate and burial will be beside her husband of almost fifty-five years in the Beasley family plot in section three at the Ridgewood Cemetery in Carthage.

The Thompson family will receive friends at Sanderson in Carthage only on Friday from 1 p.m. until leaving for the cemetery at 2:45 p.m.

She was born Cliffodean Beasley in Carthage on October 26, 1925 and was the daughter of the late Dwight Lymon Beasley who died November 25, 1957 at the age of 52 and Winnie Key Williams Beasley who died April 27, 1982 at the age of 76, both Pleasant Shade Community natives.

Mrs. Beasley was the granddaughter of prominent Pleasant Shade and Carthage physician, Dr. J. J. Beasley. After his practice in Pleasant Shade, he obtained the Ford dealership and constructed a new modern brick building in Carthage and named the business Smith County Motor Co. with his doctor's office upstairs. The dealership was moved from downtown Carthage to the present home on Dixon Springs Highway in 1966.

Mrs. Thompson was a 1943 graduate of Smith County High School where she was in the top ten of her class and served as secretary of the student body council, the English Club and typist for "The Owl" all her senior year. Her junior year she was business manager of the "Black & Gold" school paper, and president of her home room. In her freshman year she served as the Home Economics Council and her freshman year was secretary of her home room.

Of the forty members of her graduating class only one class member survives, Mrs. Ogeal Wilmore Dickerson, who recently celebrated her 100th birthday and who is the oldest living graduate of Smith County High School.

Following graduation from high school she attended the Tennessee College for Women at Murfreesboro for two years before the closing and was recently advised that she was the only surviving student of the college when it closed.

At the Carthage United Methodist Church on October 14, 1951, Mrs. Cliffodean was united in marriage to Watertown native, John Allen Thompson, who preceded her in death on September 2, 2006 at the age of 88.

In 1958, she and her husband Allen purchased the Carthage Cleaners from former Carthage Mayor, Billy Rankin and together they operated the business on the West side of the square until selling the business to Steve and Susie Enoch in 1988 when Mrs. Thompson was 63 years of age and Mr. Thompson was 71 years of age.

Mrs. Thompson was a member of First Baptist Church Carthage.

Mrs. Thompson's family had made sure she was lovingly cared for during her years of declining health.

Surviving are her daughter and son-law, Susan Thompson Daniel and husband Robert of the Tanglewood Community; granddaughter, Meagan Daniel Giraldo and husband Carlos of Ooltewah, Tennessee; grandson, Chris Daniel and wife Audrey of the Dayton, Tennessee; great-granddaughter, Eden Daniel; two great-grandsons, Jaxon Daniel and Wyatt Daniel all of Dayton, TN.

The Thompson family has requested memorials to the great-grandson, Jaxon Daniel, Care Fund.