A graveside service for Mrs. Wriley Mae Cunningham, 87, of Tatum, will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, January 29, 2015, at Tatum Cemetery with Danny Mingas officiating under the direction of Jimerson-Lipsey Funeral Home. The family will receive friends from 6-8 p.m. on Wednesday at the funeral home. Mrs. Cunningham passed away on Tuesday morning, January 27, 2015, in Carthage.

Wriley Mae Pittman Cunningham was born on July 16, 1927, to father, Jonathan Wriley (J.W.) Pittman and mother, Sarah Mae Porter Pittman, on the family farm in the Sandhills area of Beckville, Texas. At an early age she moved to Tatum, Texas where she attended school until her graduation from Tatum High School in 1944. After graduation she worked for Thiokol in Karnack, Texas as a spot welder attaching tail fins to rockets and later at the Tatum Soap Factory. On New Year's Eve, 1945 she was married to Willie Arthur (W.A.) Cunningham in a triple ceremony along side their life-long friends Ed and Edna Isaac Oden and Clarence and Margaret Deaton Oden in Marshall, Texas.

In 1947, Wriley Mae gave birth to her only son Rodger Gale Cunningham, but he was not, in many important ways, her only child. After the passing of her mother, Sarah Mae Pittman that same year, Wriley Mae began caring for her younger twin sisters, Bonnie Fay Pittman and Connie Mae Pittman, raising them as her own children.

As Mrs. W.A. Cunningham, Wriley Mae worked for Blue Buckle Sewing Factory and Lewis Engineering in Marshall, Texas. In the early 1950's she ran the Tatum Café. In the late 1950's, she ran the Spunky Service Station in Tatum. Though dabbling in farming all of her life, in 1957, she began raising cattle in earnest and was a former member of the Panola County Cattleman's Association. In the 1970's, she started Cunningham Trailer Park. She was a member of the First Baptist Church in Tatum.

In 1989, W.A. Cunningham was struck with a massive stroke that left him completely paralyzed. Unsatisfied with the institutional care he was receiving and refusing to accept the prognosis that he wouldn't survive the year, Wriley Mae brought her husband home and with the help of her grandchildren, Dana Miller Buddecke and Matt Cunningham, cared for him until his passing on January 8, 1992. She was also preceded in death by two brothers, Ocie and Elmer Pittman and a brother-in-law, James Miller.

Wriley Mae is survived by her son, Rodger Cunningham and wife Reba; sisters, Judge Bonnie Fay Miller and Connie Mae Metcalf and husband John; sister-in-law, Nancy Pauline Pittman; niece, Barbara Sue Fite; grandchildren, Debbie Miller Middleton and husband Gary, Donna Metcalf Ludden and husband Roy, Dana Miller Buddecke and husband Hank, Matt Cunningham, and Nikki Cunningham Courtney and husband Sean; great-grandchildren, Jonathan Middleton, Kristen Bray Roth and husband Marc, Timothy Middleton and wife Kaisa, Rebekah Tatum, David Price, Kaitlyn Price, Alannah Courtney, Lauren Courtney, and Aidan Courtney; and two great-great-grandchildren.

If desired, memorials may be made to the Tatum Cemetery Assn., P.O. Box 1484, Tatum, TX 75691 or the Heritage House, P.O. Box 1317, Tatum, TX 75691.

A guestbook may be signed online at www.jimerson-lipsey.com.