James Newton O’Dell, (Jim to Alabama folks, Jimmy to South Carolina folks) passed away Tuesday, October 11, 2022.
The family will receive friends and extended family Sunday, October 16, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. with the funeral service at 2:00 p.m. at Gassett Funeral Home Chapel. Burial will be at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church Cemetery, 1327 Pleasant Hill Road, Eclectic, Alabama with Gassett Funeral Home of Wetumpka directing.
Jim started working at 11 years old, was cutting meat at 13, and working at a country store. He joined the Army and served both in Libya, and at Fort Knox Kentucky. He worked as a Federal Meat Inspector, a butcher, and owned O’Dell’s Nursery with his wife Margaret for 11 years. He worked for the US Postal Service at the mail processing plant in Montgomery for 30 years. His yard and lawn were immaculate and beautiful. If he had a vice, it was that he would come rake your unwanted pine straw and remove it to his yard. After retiring he and his wife Margaret kept their grandson as a baby and loved to travel and explore the country together.
Jim knew he was dying from pancreatic cancer since December of 2020, but if you didn’t see the damage to his body, you would have never believed it. He showed all those around him an unwavering faith to his Creator, he showed us all how to die with calm gentlemanly dignity, but more so he showed us how to live every available moment to the fullest.
He didn’t get angry, he continued to treat the rest of the world respectfully and never met a person he didn’t speak to, most of the time engaging a conversation.
After chemotherapy, major surgery, more chemotherapy, his spine collapsing, losing over 140 pounds, losing his ability to taste, to lift anything, etc. (He drove over himself in his truck too), in June of this year, Margaret his wife of 53 years, was given the diagnosis of terminal cancer, that didn’t stop him.
He drove both of them to the cancer center, cooked, still worked in the yard, did the shopping, and took care of her when she no longer could open her eyes. He did this till he was too weak to do so. When having to depend on his family to take care of them both, he never stopped showing us the same wonderful faith and attitude of both life and death. His mind and his spirit never degraded, until 2 days before his death, after the cancer destroyed his body to the extent, he no longer could maintain consciousness.
He is survived by his son Jonathan M. O’Dell, daughter in law Holly R. O’Dell, grandson Joseph B. O’Dell, siblings, Randy O’Dell & wife Linda, sister Shirley O. Cueman & husband Glenn, brother Kelvin O’Dell & wife Dorothy, numerous cousins, and many friends of long years met at the FBC of Montgomery Training Union.
Pallbearers will be Jonathan O’Dell, Joseph O’Dell, Randy O’Dell, Kelvin O’Dell, Phil Crawford, and Mike Gamache.
If you didn’t learn how to live life the best a human being can short of heaven, and how to die with full faith calmly and happily then you weren’t watching Jim O’Dell these last years.