Remembering a legend - Odie Dean
In November, my grandfather, Charles Fred “Odie” Dean passed away.
He was a legend in our family, a big man who cast a long shadow that was both comforting and intimidating. I will miss him, his stories, his love, and his constant presence in my life.
I was honored to have had the privilege to write his obituary and deliver the eulogy.
Charles Fred “Odie” Dean Obituary
Charles Fred “Odie” Dean passed from this journey to the next on October 28, 2025. He passed peacefully, in the home he built for his wife and family in Kaufman, Tx, surrounded by his family and loved ones, while songs of love, life, rodeos, and outlaws played in the background.
Odie was born August 29, 1953 in Bossier City, Louisiana to Emma C. Liddell Dean and Horace Fred Dean. Odie was a proud member of the Chickasaw Nation and was often quick to share stories of his family’s history, tales of strength and resilience, of ingenuity and survival that is the Chickasaw, and Liddell-Dean story.
Odie’s life was the stuff of Larry McMurtry novels – legendary and heroic; steeped in the adventures of wild westerns mixed with accounts of industrialists who shaped cities and futures. After a youth spent rodeoing, Odie set his sights on shaping cities.
For 50 years Odie worked in commercial construction throughout the South. His leadership oversaw the construction of landmark buildings in the DFW metroplex, including the Ballpark in Arlington. Odie was also an innovator in commercial construction, having developed new ways of using and pouring concrete. Even now, 25 years after his retirement, Odie’s work continues to leave an indelible mark having shaped the Dallas skyline in ways that remain today.
Odie’s creativity wasn’t only for the large, and large scale. His creativity found its smaller and intricate avenues as well. He was a lifelong carpenter, master woodworker as well as an accomplished blacksmith. Odie knew what it was to take the hard stuff of earth and bend it to one’s will in ways that led to beauty, and art, and awe.
Yet of all of the things that Odie left behind – the buildings, skylines, houses, woodworked masterpieces and hand forged knives – it was his family and friends that brought the most joy and of which he was most proud.
His crowning jewel was the life he had with his stunning bride of 72 years, Kay Dean. Kay was the steady rock in his life and his safe harbor in life’s storms. Their life and love together served as a brilliant example of love, commitment, grace, and steadfastness. Kay and Odie had three children, Dyonne Watson, Charles Fred Dean, Jr, and Linda Pinkston Harper.
Odie was proud of his grandchildren and the ways they lived into the legacy and wisdom he instilled in them; Matthew & Lisa Watson, Luke Watson and Chel-sea Galloway, Sarah & Joel Nelson, Joseph Dean, Robert & Krista Pinkston, and Tori & Jordan Davis. Odie was also blessed by his 19 great grandchildren whose lives and living will carry and continue the legacy of Odie Dean beyond imagination. There is family you are born in to and family that you choose and two men that count as chosen family are lifelong friend Steve Donica and chosen grandson Thomas King.
He was preceded in death by his mother and father, as well as his son Charles Fred Dean, Jr. and his son in law, H. Wayne Watson, and his sisters, Anne Marie Thomas and Dorothy Caroline Stofel. He is survived by his siblings Linda Briggs as well as Vernon Dean and his wife Janelle.
For the last thirty years, Odie and Kay lived in the College Mound community of Kaufman, Tx. It was from this corner of rural Texas where Odie carved out a home, a thriving workshop, and meaningful relationships with dear friends. Odie served as a twenty-year board member of the College Mound Volunteer Fire Department, and the host of regular, informal community ‘Council Meetings’; gatherings of friends and fellow outlaws where friendship, laughter, wisdom, and cold beer were shared without hesitation, reservation, or judgement.
To honor this giant of a man, Odie’s Celebration of Life service will be Monday, November 6th, 2025 at 11:00am at the College Mound United Methodist Church with a reception to follow.
Beyond the service, Odie’s wish is for everyone to stand tall as skyscrapers, be strong as forged steel, be welcoming as a cold beer, and as unique as every piece of art ever made by Odie Dean.
Eulogy:
How does one capture the life and legacy of a legend?
How do you eulogize a man whose impact on all of our lives and imprint on so many of our lives has shaped us in ways we are all the better for?
To describe Odie and his life, words like – strong, creative, principled, powerful, loyal, stubborn, steady, passionate, intelligent, funny, wise – all come to mind. And you add your words to the ways that you might describe who and what this man was to you and for you.
When I look out across this room, I see folks here who have known Odie in so many different ways.
Some of you knew him when he was a younger man, you knew him when he was a rodeo man. You knew him when he was an arm wrestling in Colorado, or playing cards in Texas. You knew him when he began his construction career on border towns and when he was building cathedrals to baseball players.
You knew him when he was shooting black powder guns, throwing tomahawks, and forging knives. You knew him sitting around wood burning stoves, and drinking cold beer and sipping whiskey – philosophizing about the world’s problems, and telling stories of glory in the rearview mirror. You knew him blowing your mind as when he’d share wisdom, wise words, and old Indian tricks.
Growing up, grandpa always seemed huge to me. I mean, he was a big man for sure. Taller than most. Stronger than most. When he needed to be, meaner than most. These truths weren’t lost on me as a kid. And yet, his tenderness. The hugs. The kisses on the top of the head. The times he’d grab me, squeeze me and, then he’d growl!
Reminders that I didn’t have anything to fear. That I was his grandson. His life was in my veins. And his love was in my heart and mine in his. That bond, that connection was an anchor, a root that runs deep and steadies in any storm. But it wasn’t just his size and affection that held me through my life. It was the stories. And oh the Odie Dean stories! Goodness. They are legion are they not.
Growing up, I have to confess, some of them seemed like apocryphal embellishments to me. I’d walk away from one story of heroism, or adventure and think, “surely it didn’t go down like that”, only to have the story confirmed by another family member, or friend, or vagabond who’d showed up at the house. And sometimes they’d add information that Grandpa didn’t tell me making the story grander than before.
Stories of jail breaks, and bar fights, and gun shots. Stories of Indians and Outlaws. Stories of golf championships, and arm wrestling victories, and high stakes card games. Stories of hurricanes and oil rigs. Stories of skyscrapers and clueless architects and stories of salt of the earth men who worked on his construction crews. Stories of creating and making - of taking the things that Creator deposited into the earth and with tenderness, care, heat, and persistence formed them into monuments to man’s creative Spirit.
Stories of wooing Grandma, and having to convince Ruscas that Odie Dean was a good choice for son in law, even when they had reservations!
It was stories of standing up for what’s right because it was right, and of heartbreak – because to live well in this world and to love deeply in this world means that your heart can take a beating sometimes. But you don’t stop loving because of it.
Odie Dean stories…could fill pages, libraries…and have filled our lives.
But it wasn’t just his stories. Grandpa would always dispense these sayings, these Odie-Proverbs. One liners or phrases that came across like a wisdom cocktail – one part humor, two parts truth, a dash of warning, shaken and served over the rocks of life lessons.
I remember one was: “Only lie to save the life of a man or the honor of a woman”.
Unless I’m playing cards, I don’t often practice deceit. But I’ve never forgotten this.
Rob shared one the other night: “If you can’t be proud of it, don’t do it”. A reminder to be proud of your work – whatever work you’re doing, regardless of however small.
One of the most common Odie-Proverbs that I’d hear over the years, especially as an adult and began charting my own way forward; Grandpa would tell me:
“Keep your wits about you. And never be fearful”.
“Keep your wits. Never be fearful”.
Those words have carried me around the world and through some of life’s gut wrenching moments. In the Scriptures that I read earlier, one of the consistent refrains is some version of “Fear Not”.
Psalm 23 – “I will fear no evil”
Psalm 46 – “We will not fear”
Isaiah 41 – “So do not fear”
“Do not fear” is actually the command that God gives the most in all of Scripture. It isn’t ‘pray’, or ‘fast’, or ‘worship’, or even love interestingly. It’s ‘do not fear’. A command that is anchored in God’s love towards his children. For the past 40 years, Grandma and Grandpa have lived in this little corner of the world. He has been rooted in this place and in this community. And for the last 20 years, I’ve lived farther away.
I remember him first passing on this bit of wisdom when my truck was packed and I was heading West. “Keep your wits about you. Don’t ever be fearful”. He’d say it again, with emphasis, when I began to set sail for foreign countries.
Over the years, Grandpa and I would be separated by geography and time zones, but I’d often call Grandpa – there was always something comforting to me to know that wherever in the world I was – West African country sides, Chinese mega cities, war zones in South Asia - I could talk with my Grandpa who was just steps away from a place of rootedness - his workshop and a piece of land that was a second home to me and has meant so much so many people.
The thing is, with these phone calls - you know, Grandpa was hard of hearing and international phone calls could be tricky.
I remember one disaster of a call. I’m in Nigeria at the time and there was like a 7 second delay in the call. So I call, and the connection isn’t good, and I was feverishly trying to update him on my life and what was going on, but it’s silent on his end so he starts talking, but it takes a few seconds to get to me, so I stop and listen then reply, and then he’s asking questions about something I said now 30 seconds ago…after us talking over each other, and interrupting each other and not hearing each other, finally, he says, “Aw Hell, I can’t hear him” and Grandma’s back on the phone, and I’m laughing at the hilarity of it all. And I’m comforted again – by the voice and love and presence of this mountain of a man. I’m standing in Africa – and through the phone – it’s like he’s taken me up in his arms again, big hug, kiss on the head, and growl in my ear reminding me that I have nothing to fear.
Another time, I’d just landed in Hong Kong and thought that would be a great time to give the old man a call. Surprisingly, he answered the phone – which almost never happened – and I tell him “hey Grandpa it’s Matthew!” and he promptly told me that Grandma was out. I shared with him that I was calling from China to which he quickly replied, “Well, this ain’t a collect call is it?!”. We laughed. Talked a little more. And then he said it, words as though from Creator himself. “Keep your wits about you. Don’t be fearful”. “Yes sir”.
The stories, the wisdom, the love – the adventures, and strength, and tenderness and steadiness – all that made up Odie Dean can’t fit in a eulogy – any more than his life can fit in a box put in the ground. All of who he is to us, and for us – we carry that with us. Here. As we are gathered to remember and celebrate this great man. And then, as we scatter taking with us our own Odie stories and Odie proverbs sharing them, passing them on, making new ones in his honor.
As Tori said earlier, the way that we honor this legend of man is to – in our own way – live as he lived, to stand tall as skyscrapers, be strong as forged steel, be welcoming as a cold beer, and as unique as every masterpiece ever made by Odie Dean.