Manford Sexton
Manford Etchel Sexton Jr. (Dec. 22, 1931 – Sept. 17, 1952) was a soldier from Scott County killed in an automobile accident in Florida during the Korean War.
See Also: Scott Countians killed in war
Biography
Born Dec. 22, 1931, Manford E. Sexton Jr. was the son of Manford Etchel Sexton (1899-1976) and Wilda Baker (1901-1990). His siblings included Roy Denver Sexton (1923-2001), Wilda Theora York (1926-2017), Lillian Louise Reed (1928-2015), Tommy Burton Sexton (1930-2014), Romola Fayrene Terry (1933-2021), Charles Bruce Sexton (1938-2020) and Edwina Rose Greenwood (1940-2017).
Roy and Tommy served in the U.S. Air Force. Tommy was a basketball standout at Oneida High School and Huntsville High School who had a scholarship offer from the University of Tennessee. However, he was unable to play after developing rheumatic fever. Charlie Sexton was a well-known attorney in Oneida and served as Scott County General Sessions Court Judge for 16 years. He, too, served in the armed forces, and was a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Manford’s father was Scott County Circuit Court Clerk beginning in 1926. His paternal grandfather, Caswell Sexton, was killed in a coal mine explosion on Christmas Day in 1919. Manford’s fourth-great-grandfather was Revolutionary War veteran Timothy Sexton, who moved to present-day Scott County and settled in the Brimstone area after the war.
Manford married Una Vee Owens of Oneida on March 11, 1952. She was the daughter of Henry Robert Owens (1896-1966) and Nona Mae Duncan (1897-1988) of Buffalo.
Korean War
Sgt. Sexton enlisted in the U.S. Army and served overseas in Austria and Germany. He was stationed at Camp Rucker, Ala. at the time of his death.
Although he’s listed on the Scott County Veterans Memorial in Huntsville as one of Scott County’s Korean War dead, he did not fight in the Korean War.
Death
Sgt. Sexton was fatally injured in an automobile accident near Esto, Fla. on Sept. 17, 1952. He was buried at Sexton Cemetery in Huntsville, where his parents are also buried.
Una Vee remarried to Donald R. Holt (1927-1994), a Korean War veteran. They had a son, Gary Wayne Holt (1957-2021) and another son, Donald Lloyd Holt. Una Vee died in Algood, Tenn. in 2021.