Carlos Roy Tidwell, Sr, CMSgt, USAF (Ret.)

Funeral services will be conducted Saturday, July 18, 2026, at 12 Noon from the chapel of the Taylor Funeral home. Rev. Diane Housan-Abbott will officiate. Full military honors will be observed. Visitation will be on Friday evening, July 17^th, from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. and on Saturday beginning at 11:00 a.m. until time of service. Place of rest will be in the Tidwell Cemetery on Sugar Creek in Hickman County.

Those desiring, memorials are suggested to the Tidwell Cemetery Association.

Carlos Roy Tidwell, Sr., CMSgt, USAF (Ret.) age 94 of Sugar Creek Community in Hickman County died July 11, 2026, at the family farm on Sugar Creek.

He was born in the Bold Springs community of Hickman County, son of the late Arlie and Roberta Peeler Tidwell.  He was preceded in death by his son Arlie Kiichizo Tidwell and wife Peggy Katsue Tidwell. He was a 1950 graduate of Hickman County High School and after high school he enlisted in the United States Air Force for a long productive career for two decades.  CMSgt Tidwell whose specialties as a radio operator and a top-secret cryptographic manager took him all over the world. He learned electronic maintenance skills and prepared himself with knowing the Morse code. He served in Japan for three years, the first of his three tours there over two decades in the Air Force. Some other places served was Greenland’s Thule Air Base, fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle, the Philippines, Virginia and Kansas.  His expertise involved him in the Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and USSR. After retirement from a long career with the Air Force, he joined the U.S. Postal Service in Nashville serving for some 20 years.

His interest in Japan became quite personal. On September 30, 1952, he married a beautiful Japanese lady, Katsue “Peggy” Izu. They became the parents of three children and were married for 56 years until her death in 2009.  After their marriage and later thinking about coming back to the states there was one problem. There were 17 states that he and Peggy could not live, Tennessee being one of them. Interracial marriage was illegal and the military would not assign them to any one of those states until the Civil Rights Act of 1954 passed. Later in 2016 he married Annie Louise Curtis, who survives.

Later in life, Carlos was blessed to find love once again. In 2016, he married Annie Louise Curtis, the girl he fondly remembered from his youth. Though they wed later in years, their time together was defined by a youthful, vibrant devotion. For the next ten years, they lived and loved like two teenagers. Carlos cherished her deeply, always calling Louise his “sweetheart” their decade of marriage brought a beautiful, tender chapter of joy to his twilight years.

He loved the farm. He grew up on the farm on Sugar Creek where he learned to do it all from growing crops and working the mules. He loved vegetable gardening and working on the land.

Survivors include his wife of 10 years, Annie Louise Curtis Tidwell of McEwen, TN, his two children, Carlos R. Tidwell, Jr. and his wife Tammy, his daughter Col. Irene Larson and her husband Steve of Clarksville, TN, his stepson, Tony Curtis and his wife Nora of McEwen, TN, his sister, Sue Boone of McEwen, TN, his grandchildren, SFC Sonja Larson-Andrusko and her husband Andrew, Carlos R. Tidwell, III, Erika Larson, Alex Tidwell, his step granddaughters, Taylor Curtis and Treila Curtis, numerous nieces and nephews.