A longtime McKinney resident, Charlcie passed away on Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at her daughter’s home in Austin. She was 103 years of age.
She was born in McKinney on February 13, 1920, to Charlie and Bessie Drake of McKinney. She was a descendant of the famous English explorer, Sir Francis Drake, known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition in 1580. She and her three sisters formed a quartet (“the Drake sisters”) that performed, along with their instrument-playing father, at various venues around McKinney in the 1930s. One of her fondest memories as a child was making a trip twice a year to Dallas with her family—to shop for a new dress. A graduate of McKinney High School in 1938, she married Gipson Paul O’Dell, a general contractor in McKinney.
As a mother of two young children, she worked for 8 years at Steffey’s on North Tennessee Street, providing the public with, among other delights, the famous “Jiffy Dog.” She later worked, for some 23 years, at the Texas Instruments plant in Richardson. She finished out her working career preparing food for students at Burkes Elementary School in McKinney for 8 years.
She was married for 51 years to Gipson Paul O’Dell, who passed away in 1990. Seven years later, she would remarry, to Harold “Tobe” Veach of McKinney, whom she met while a member of the Westside Church of Christ in McKinney. At the old Davis Street Church of Christ, then at Westside, she taught Bible class for preschool children for 40 continuous years—without any extended leaves of absence!
Charlcie is survived by one son, Paul Ray O’Dell, and wife Rosalie of Brisbane, Australia, and one daughter, Judy, and husband George Bomar, of Austin; seven grandchildren, and 12 great grandchildren.
A funeral service will be held Friday, October 6, 2023 at High Point Church of Christ 3201 N Central Expressway, McKinney, Texas 75071. Interment will follow at Wilson Cemetery McKinney, Texas. The family will receive friends during a visitation from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. at Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home 2525 Central Expressway North, Allen, Texas 75013.