Gene Evelyn Warren

Funeral services for Mrs. Gene Evelyn Warren, age 91, of Cookeville, will be held Friday November 30th at 1 p.m. in the Cookeville Chapel of Hooper-Huddleston & Horner Funeral Home. Interment will follow in Smith Chapel Cemetery. Rev. Rob Wheeler will officiate. Mrs. Warren's family will receive friends Friday from 11 a.m. until service time at the funeral home. She died Tuesday November 27, 2018 in Cookeville Regional Medical Center. She was born Saturday March 19, 1927 in Cookeville to the late Harvey Jarvis Matheney, Sr. and Susie Phillips Matheney. She earned a bachelor's degree from TPI (Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, now Tennessee Tech University/TTU). Mrs. Warren was employed at TPI, followed by TTU, in the Dean of Men's registration office. Local lore has it that she was ‘stolen' by Bishop Holliman of the Social Security Administration office for work there after years of Holliman interacting with her regarding every detail of TTU students' Social Security issues. Former TTU President William Everett Derryberry was known for keeping a friendly feud alive with Holliman about his former employee. She traveled with her husband to many parts of the world, starting with seeing most of the United States by car. They drove to New Orleans from Cookeville to see The Mississippi River early in the morning on the day they were married, and as the first couple to be married in the chapel of the newly-renovated The First United Methodist Church on October 22, 1950. They frequently camped along the side roads and in nearby woods, always keeping each subsequent station wagon with a custom-made mattress for sleeping. While they both loved "roughing it," Mrs. Warren was known to say she needed a "place to stop after four or five days to do my hair and freshen up before hitting the road again." They both loved animals, rescuing and raising the orphans they found, and those brought to them. They frequently went on nature hikes to find native plants from the region to transport to their wooded property with its cave and spring that were once the source of water for Dixie College (later TPI and TTU) long before they found the property and built their home there in 1967. They laid paths of stone throughout the five acres which were visited by school classes on nature hikes; woods often filled with the birds that her husband hand fed, the deer that found nightly piles of cracked corn left by the couple on large boulders, and nearly twenty generations of raccoons, many that they gave names, that were invited to climb two stories up and into their house nightly to take food back outside and dip in pans of water left by Mr. and Mrs. Warren. Mrs. Warren helped raise her brother's two children Tina and Lewis Matheney after the pair had been abandoned by their biological mother. She was a lifelong and active member of Cookeville First United Methodist Church, where she also taught class. She was a volunteer for The Putnam County Library, The Cookeville History Museum, The Cookeville Depot Museum, as well as volunteering for various cancer charities and cancer awareness groups. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband of 64 years, Hubert Carrel Warren and by her niece, Tina Matheney. She is survived by brother, Jarvis Matheney, Jr. of Cookeville; nephew Richard Matheney of Dayton, OH; nephew Lewis Matheney and his partner Gary Lee of New York City, Chicago, and Stockton, NJ; and by a special caregiver, Kathy Maxwell. Troy Mills, Dave Brown, Alton Freeman, Gary Lee, Richard Matheney and his son Bill Matheney will serve as pallbearers. Memorial contributions may be made to the Cookeville History Museum, 40 E Broad St, Cookeville, TN 38501, Putnam County Library, 50 E Broad St, Cookeville, TN 38501, and/or Cookeville Depot Museum, 116 W Broad St, Cookeville, TN 38501. Hooper-Huddleston & Horner Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. (931) 526-6111. Share your memories and condolences at hhhfunerals.com