Billye June Cordell Smith passed away peacefully at The Pinnacle of Oxford on Tuesday, June 18, 2024.

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 20, at Wells Funeral Home with the interment to follow at Forrest Memorial Park. The family will receive friends one hour prior to the service.

Billye was born on July 13, 1931 to the late Earnest Raymond (Hap) Cordell and Ocie Newsom Cordell in Darling. After graduating high school at Sardis in 1949, she worked for Choctaw Construction in Memphis, before marrying and moving to Birmingham. In Birmingham, she was a stay-at-home mom caring for her family. She and her husband returned to Batesville in 1977. Although unable to attend for a while, she was a member of the First Baptist Church in Batesville.

She loved traveling and shopping with friends and family. She had a great sense of humor and loved joking around. She was the heart of our family and enjoyed caring for others. She loved her daughters (“her girls”) and grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 37 years, Dennis Eugene Smith. She was also preceded in death by her brother, Charles Robert Cordell. She is survived by her daughters, Karen Smith Sneed (Charlie) and Kathy Smith Sibley (Mark), 2 grandchildren, Kelly Sneed Burch (Chad) and Robert Charles Sneed, and 1 great grandchild, Ainsley Kate Burch.

We would like to thank The Pinnacle of Oxford and everyone there who cared for Billye. They have become like a second family to us.

In lieu of flowers, a donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital may be made in her memory.