Individual Details

Death

SHELBYVILLE -- Wilma Simpson Furr, 98, lifelong resident of Tower Hill and Shelbyville, died 9:05 p.m. Wednesday (Jan. 3, 1996) in Shelbyville Manor. Services will be 2 p.m. Saturday in Howe & Yockey Funeral Home, Shelbyville, with visitation one hour before services. Burial will be in Tower Hill Cemetery. Memorials: Shelbyville Manor. Mrs. Furr was born Sept. 8, 1897, in Missouri, the daughter of Allen Gaskill and Della Wallace Kennedy. She graduated from Tower Hill High School in 1915, the only member of the graduating class. Wilma was a homemaker who took her first job at the age of 60 working for the Secretary of State and later became a housemother at MacMurray College, Jacksonville. She was very active in her church and kindled her love and knowledge of music in her children and grandchildren. She was a member of Order of the Eastern Star Mazeppa Chapter, Tower Hill, and First United Methodist Church, Shelbyville. On June 3, 1917, she married Fritts T. Simpson in the Tower Hill Methodist Church. He preceded her in death in 1945. In 1947 Wilma and O.O. Sharpe were married and he passed away in 1959. She married Allen Furr in 1968 and he died in 1987. Surviving are her son, Robert Kennedy Simpson of Urbana; daughter, Maridell Simpson Carpenter of Shelbyville; stepsons, Russell Furr of Roanoke; Clyde Furr of Sun City, Ariz.; O.K. Sharpe of Pana; three stepdaughters, including Catherine Gaston, Pfleugelville, Texas; three granddaughters; one grandson; five great-grandchildren; one great-great-granddaughter.