Mrs. Connie Opal Limbaugh, age 85, a lifelong mother and homemaker, passed from this life on Wednesday, February 11, 2015, at her home in rural Coffee County (on the Bradyville mail route with a DeKalb Telephone Co-op phone number).
Mrs. Limbaugh was preceded in death by her husband TJ Limbaugh; parents: Ernest and Ethyl Taylor Byford; two sisters: Flora “Jean” Allen and Cora Parker; five brothers: Pete Byford, George “Cowboy” Byford, Cecil Byford, Maurice Byford, and one infant brother; one granddaughter, Melanie Roberts Chisolm; and one son-in-law, Larry Dean Davis.
She is survived by two daughters; Barbara Davis of Bradyville, Tennessee, and Debbie Roberts and husband William of Panama City, Florida; three sons: Charles “Charley” Limbaugh and wife Molly of Nashville, Tennessee, Robert “Bob” Limbaugh and wife Vicki of Bridgeton, Missouri, and James “Jimmy” Limbaugh and wife Kim of Norfolk, Virginia; thirteen grandchildren; twenty-six great grandchildren (and two more on the way this summer); eleven step-grandchildren; twenty-two step-great grandchildren; and three step-great great grandchildren.
Mrs. Opal Limbaugh was a member of the Goose Pond United Methodist Church.
Opal was born in November of 1929. Her parents lived in the Sixteenth Model community of Coffee County when Opal was born. The daughter of a moonshiner whose wife died when Opal was eight, Opal’s life was tough, growing up during the Great Depression. She worked hard all her life, leaving home at thirteen to work in a commercial laundry. After the war, Opal married the late TJ Limbaugh, a union that lasted sixty-three years, and, some might say, made her a little crotchety. For almost fifty years (even after TJ’s death in 2009) she faithfully attended the annual reunion of TJ’s World War II unit, the 476th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion.
When Opal got old enough to sign up for Social Security, she had to use a new name, Connie; and she found out that she had a different, new, younger birthday (by a year and 10 days). Opal’s next older sister, the late Cora Parker, came to live with Opal for a few of their last years. The constant sibling bantering between them made one or two home health nurses wonder if the two should be left alone together. However, they both dearly loved funnel cakes from the County Fair and peach cobbler from Emma’s Family Restaurant.
The last two and a half years of her life, Opal was plagued with a broken ankle which refused to heal properly and ultimately had to be amputated. She told the staff at the nursing home that she may have been brought in on a gurney but that she would walk out, which she did with the aid of a modern-day, artificial foot.
Funeral Services for Mrs. Opal Limbaugh will be conducted on Sunday, February 15, 2015, at 1:00 PM at the Coffee County Funeral Chapel with Brother Cliff Seyler and Reverend Ben Day officiating.
Burial will follow in the Cherry Cemetery, Cannon County, Tennessee.
Visitation will be held on Saturday, February 14, 2015, from 5:00 PM until 9:00 PM at the Coffee County Funeral Chapel, Manchester, Tennessee.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be made to the Melanie Roberts Chisolm Band Scholarship Fund, 5505 Sun Harbor Road, # 151, Panama City, FL 32401
COFFEE COUNTY FUNERAL CHAPEL IS HONORED TO SERVE THE FAMILY OF OPAL LIMBAUGH.