Person:Mattie Whitfield (1)

(Mattie) Sue Whitfield was born in Georgia 30 November 1894 to Albert Whitfield and his wife Lulu or Lula Jane Varnell. Lula was born in 1872 and married Albert in 1892. Lula died on 22 November 1900 and Mattie Sue was sent to live with her aunt Lizzie Varnell in Texas since her father felt unable to care for a five year old on his own. A few years later, Sue returned to Georgia and lived with her father and his second wife Carrie Greeson, whom he married in 1905. Albert and Carrie had three boys Hubert, Carlton and Byron, half brothers for Mattie Sue. I have a copy of the funniest newspaper article where two of the boys are reminiscing with their 84 year old mother about the time she put postage stamps on them and sent them in the mail wagon to visit an aunt.

Sue was a registered nurse. She told stories of her days in nursing school in Oklahoma with Rhoda Bradley who became a lifelong friend and “Aunt Rhoda” to Sue’s children. We have a copy of the May 1917 commencement program from the Oklahoma State Hospital Training School for Nurses. There were four women in the class. On December 31, 1918 she married Joel T. Carney, a general physician. The 1920 census shows them living in Louisville with Joel aged 28 at that time and Sue aged 25. They later moved to Batesville, Indiana and still later to Jeffersonville, Indiana. They raised three children. Sue liked to take the children traveling on car trips along with a woman friend. Joel and Sue had a lovely old house on Sparks Avenue in Jeffersonville, near the hospital (later torn down to build a nursing home). When their children had all left home they moved to a smaller house in Clarksville, in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood at 2602 Hollywood Boulevard. Sue was a loving grandmother and a great southern cook and she loved her flower garden, especially the roses. Joel died in Los Angeles, California on 4 March 1974. Sue died in Los Angeles a year later on 5 June 1975 where they had moved to be near daughter Beth.