Oscar Whitfield Frye

Dateline – Whitmire, SC

Oscar Whitfield Frye, 82, of 1148 SC Hwy. 66, entered into eternal rest in the early hours of Thursday morning, April 21, 2016, at his home after a valiant seven year battle with Parkinson’s disease. The moment he had longed for came with great peace with family members at his side.
Born September 2, 1933 in Darlington, South Carolina, he was the youngest of six children born to the late William Irvin and Katie Sue Waites Frye. Oscar was reared in rural Newberry, South Carolina and attended Newberry High School before entering military service. He was a Korean War veteran having served with the United States Navy Seabees for six years. Following his service with the Navy, he served two years in the United States Air Force.
His military career afforded him the opportunity to visit numerous countries around the world including Denmark, Iceland, Cuba and Morocco. He was stationed for two years in Turkey with the Seabees. He also visited nearly every state in the United States and was especially fond of Montana where he was stationed while serving in the Air Force.
As a young man, he lived in Darlington and Greenwood before his family settled back Newberry where his parents had met and married in 1923. He had made his home in Whitmire since his marriage in 1961.
His Frye ancestors were German speaking immigrants from Switzerland who arrived in South Carolina in 1750 and settled in Lexington County just below the present location of the Lake Murray Dam on the Saluda River. His mother’s Waites ancestors arrived in Charleston, South Carolina in 1768 from Ireland.
His parents owned Frye’s Nursery on the Whitmire Highway in Newberry for more than twenty-five years and he was often found helping his father with landscaping jobs on weekends. Under the benefits of the GI Bill, he earned two associate degrees from Piedmont Technical College with Dean’s List honors while raising a family and working nights and weekends. His technical education led to a twenty-two year career with the Flour Daniel Corporation at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, South Carolina.
He was Elder Emeritus and a former Sunday school teacher at Queens Memorial Presbyterian Church in Newberry which is located not far from his childhood home. As his health declined, he and his wife attended Whitmire Pentecostal Holiness Church and Evans Street Church of God in Whitmire.
His greatest joys were his family and many friends and his church families. His children remember the huge garden he planted each spring that they so “happily” got to help tend as well as spontaneous weekend trips to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.
He is survived by this wife of 54 years, Eleanor Hunnicutt Frye; his children and their spouses, Randall Frye of Laurens, Tammy and Joey Walker of Fountain Inn, and Todd and Niki Frye of Lexington; four grandchildren, Adam Walker of Monks Corner, Kimberly (Dustin Tindale) Frye of Lexington, Haven (Zac Watson, United States Marines) Walker, a nursing student at Greenville Technical College, and Lauren Frye, a speech pathology student at Valdosta State University; and the newest love of his life, his great-granddaughter, Kadence Marie Tindale, of Lexington. He is also survived by his faithful sister, Margaret Frye Taylor, of Newberry.

In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by four siblings: Catherine F. McCartha, Bill Frye, Jean F. Bumgarner, and Jerrie F. Bass.

Visitation will be held on Friday, May 6, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at Whitmire Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1325 Broom Street, Whitmire. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 7, at the church. The memorial service will begin with a military honors ceremony on the lawn of the church to be immediately followed by the service. The South Carolina Patriot Guard will honor Mr. Frye’s military service with a flag line. The memorial service will be conducted by the Rev. Dr. David A. Torrey, pastor of Queens Memorial Presbyterian Church. Music will be provided by David Hunnicutt, Wanda Hunnicutt Howard and Rhonda Cartee Wicker.

The family wishes to expresses their overwhelming gratitude to the staff of Medi Home Hospice of Union for their compassionate service to their loved one for the past three years.

The family respectfully request that flowers be omitted and memorial be directed to the group home which cares for his autistic grandson or to the hospice which provided excellent care.

Conifer II
Oscar Frye Memorial
114 Resinwood Drive
Monks Corner, SC 29461

Medi Home Hospice
720 Suite C South Duncan Bypass
Union, SC 29379

Fair winds and following seas.

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. ‘ Mathew 25:23