Wanda Gortney

Mrs. Wanda Gortney of the Defeated Creek Community passed peacefully from her earthly journey at 4:49 a.m. Saturday morning November 8, 2025 at the Highpoint Health – Riverview Medical Center in Carthage with her family at her bedside. She was admitted October 29th battling pancreatic cancer and had been fighting the disease for almost nine months.
Mrs. Gortney is at the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home where her family will have a private viewing. A public graveside service will be conducted Friday afternoon November 14th at 1 p.m. with Bro. Frank Bratcher officiating. Interment will follow in Garden II at the Wilson County Memorial Gardens in Lebanon. The family will receive friends following the service.
She was born Wanda Kaye Williams in Nashville on May 6, 1950 and was the eldest of six children and the daughter of U. S. Army Korean Veteran, Staff Sergent Burnice Ray (B. R.) Williams who died at the age of 80 on December 18, 2010 and Joyce C. Smalling Williams who died at the age of 67 on June 9, 2003.
Two brothers preceded her in death, Tony Simpson of Decatur, Alabama and Iraqi War Veteran, Staff Sergent Richard Stephen (Ricky) Williams, who died January 18, 1998 at the age of 35. Ricky was a member of the U. S. Army Somalian Airborne Division.
Wanda was united in marriage to Lebanon resident, Robert Louis Gortney at the Carthage Freewill Baptist Church. The ceremony was performed by Bro. Frank Bratcher on June 16, 2001.
Mrs. Gortney attended the Edgewater High School in Orlando, Florida.
She was a non-denominational Christian.
Before her retirement she was a long-time desk clerk, first at the former Carthage General Hospital in South Carthage (now The Pavilion Senior living) and she retired with the same position at the former Columbia H. C. A. Hospital (now Highpoint Health - Riverview at Ascension St. Thomas Hospital) in Carthage.
Surviving in addition to her husband Robert, of over twenty-four years, are two sisters, Teresa Wix of Birmingham, Alabama, Debbi Cook and husband Terry of Lafayette; brother, Bobby Powers and wife Kathy of Lebanon; step-son, Robert Brian Gortney of Scottsville, Kentucky; two grandchildren, Robert Brian Gortney Jr. of Fort Worth, Texas, Vanesa Gortney of Lebanon.
Pallbearers: Derrick Wix, Isaac El-Amin, Scott Moore, Daniel Beaty, Clay Crocker &
Robert Brian Gortney Jr.