My mother, Sudie Catherine Frye McCord, descended from the paternal bloodline of James R. Frye of Dutch, Tennessee near Knoxville, an old railroad stop that today sits at the bottom of a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) lake. James was married to Mary Matilda Harrell, probably of Tennessee. No records of their birth dates, birth places, death dates or death places are known to me. James and Mary had several children including my maternal grandfather John Wesley Frye, born August 26, 1876 in Dutch, Tennessee and died September 24, 1967, in Greenville, Hunt County, Texas. My grandfather married Nancy Armanda (Minnie) Tidwell, who was born in Alabama on September 20, 1888 and died in Dallas, Dallas County, Texas on April 28, 1982. My grandmother's parents were Lodrick (or Loderick) Tidwell of Alabama (February 2, 1853 - September 13, 1925) and Mary Mathila Murphree, probably of Tennessee (January 3, 1859 - March 21, 1936) and who is believed to be related to the Murphrees after which Murphreesboro, Tennessee is named. In addition to my grandmother, her parents also had two other daughters who migrated to Texas, married and lived there until their deaths: Sudie Tidwell Helton (after whom my mother is named) who married John Ervin "Shorty" Helton and Ludie Tidwell Capps who married Marion Capps of Alabama. Neither of my great aunts had children.

My great aunt Sudie was a lover of music and is responsible for introducing me to music. She had an old, hand-cranked Victorola 78 rpm record player and a bunch of vinyl platters that resembled armor plating. Her collection included religious, classical and jazz music, and she was a huge fan of Big Bands and Tennessee Ernie Ford. I still remember hearing him sing his rendition of The Platters' song "16 Tons" with that deep bass voice of his. Another song I remember from her collection was titled "Too Old to Cut the Mustard Anymore". My aunt Sudie died of cancer in 1958, was hers was the first funeral I ever attended. It was a huge affair because she had many close friends. It was also the last time I remember that many of our family members being gathered in one place at one time. Previous to her death we used to have annual family reunions at Samuell-Tennyson Park in East Dallas near where my aunts Sudie and Ludie (whom we called Aunt Sis) lived off of East Grand Avenue and close to Fair Park.

My mother had an older brother whose name is unknown to me and who died at a very early age due to food poisoning from improperly prepared tomato soup. She also had an older sister, Mary Frye Newell, who was born ten years before her and who died about 1997 in Big Spring, Howard County, Texas where she lived most of her adult life with my uncle Roscoe Newell. Both my aunt and uncle were lifelong educators, and my aunt spent the last 20+ years of her life working with special education children who had learning disabilities. In fact, she was once of the first in Texas to research and work with such children, and is renowned for her work and writings on the subject.

Roscoe and Mary Newell's children were Roscoe, Jr., Buddy, Wesley (Wimpy) and Lewis, all of whom attended West Texas State Teachers College, later renamed West Texas State University before eventually becoming a part of the Texas A&M University System. Cousins Wimp and Buddy became homebuilders in the Plano area. I have lost all contact with the Newells over the last couple of decades, and hopefully will be able to locate any who are still living so that more can be added about that part of our family.

My grandfather, and most of the children of Roscoe and Mary Newell were also educators. In fact, my grandfather was the math teacher of my grandmother in Red Oak, Ennis County, Texas. Around the time of World War I my grandfather became a carpenter to support his family. He became a lifelong member of Woodmen of the World. He and my grandmother moved to Greenville before starting their family and continued to live there until my grandfather died, at which time my grandmother moved to Dallas where she resided in an assisted living home. The children of Mary and Roscoe married and moved to Plano, Collin County (a northern suburb of Dallas), Richardson, Dallas County, and Farmers Branch (Dallas County), Texas where some of them still live today with their families.

My mother, Sudie Catherine Frye McCord, was born in Greenville, Hunt County, Texas, on March 5, 1921, and went to work at Southwest Wheel in Dallas after graduating from Greenville High School in about 1939. At some point unknown to me she moved to Austin and was working there when she met my father who was working for the husband of her aunt Sudie Tidwell Helton. My dad was riding with my great aunt and uncle John Ervin "Shorty" Helton in downtown Austin when they saw my mother walking down the sidewalk and gave her a ride back to where she was working at that time. This meeting took place in 1945, shortly after my dad returned from World War II where he fought Hitler in Italy, and then Hirohito in New Guinea, New Caledonia, New Britain, Corregador and the Phillipine Islands.

My parents married on November 3, 1945, and in eight months my older brother Arthur Ross McCord, Jr. was prematurely born on July 12, 1946, though he died from complications of underdeveloped lungs less than a day later. I was the next child of my parents followed by brothers Bob and Bill and then sisters Mary and Karen. Details about our lives are on the Clan McCord page of this website.

My mother was a housewife until my youngest sister Karen graduated high school, and she had been a lifelong Sunday School teacher at Grace Temple Baptist Church in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. She was also very active in Eastern Star, serving as Worthy Matrton of her chapter twice and as secretary for over ten years preceeding her death. Along with my dad, who was a 32nd Degree Mason and member of the Scottish Rite, she lived a very active life between about 1972 and 1981, when my father died, then continued actively serving her church and Eastern Star chapter up to her own death. She was a true sweetheart of a woman, and a paragon by which all mothers should be measured. I never heard her say an unkind word about any person, and she would never bring harm or emotional distress to anybody for any reason. She was a rare gem that I will always treasure.

My father died of a heart attack while mowing his backyard at his home in Dallas on August 22, 1981, at the early age of 61, from arterial sclerosis. He had seldom ever exhibited any major medical problems and had no history of heart-related problems, so his death was a complete surprise to us all. He worked all the time and was very healthy. My mother suffered from a 40+ year history of pectoral angina, though it never really bothered her until the last few years of her life. She died from a massive heart attack at home on January 10, 1996, just hours after returning home from ten days in the hospital following a minor heart attack. I am sure she was aware that she was about to die, and did not want to end her life in a hospital. I was caring for her at the time of her death and found her on her bathroom floor where she fell during the night.

I am actively searching for additional information on the Frye, Tidwell, Newell, Murphree, Helton and Capps families. Any information that others have on these lines will be most appreciated.