A life, recovered / 1916–1995
Mabel Marzelle Pritchett
Before the chart, she was Big Mama
Mabel Marzelle Pritchett Birdwell—Clayton’s maternal great-grandmother—pictured at right beside her husband, Oides “Bill” Birdwell.
01
The Pritchett daughter
Mabel Marzelle Pritchett was the daughter of Turner Pinkston Pritchett and Mary Amby Marbut. The compiled family register places her birth in Whitney in 1916. She came from the Hill County family whose names Clayton and Gia later found at Vaughan Cemetery.
To Clayton, she was Big Mama. That name belongs to the remembered household, alongside Papa Birdwell, long before the family became a collection of dates and records.
Sources: Descendants of John Marbut II, 2025 · God Forbid We Just Go to the Butcher · The Faces We Keep
The Hill County marriage record names Oides Birdwell and Mabel M. Pritchett. Its completed return records July 23, 1934, as the marriage date.
View the source record →02
A Birdwell household
A Hill County document records Mabel’s marriage to Oides “Bill” Birdwell in 1934. His wartime registration card names her as the person who would always know his address.
Their daughter Ivana Sue became Clayton’s maternal grandmother. Family photographs show Mabel beside Oides, including the image in which he rests an arm over her shoulder. Those everyday gestures carry something the official forms cannot.
Sources: God Forbid We Just Go to the Butcher · The Faces We Keep
03
The family remembered around her
Mabel’s siblings enter Clayton’s family story through affectionate and very particular recollections: Uncle Willie buying the children Dr Peppers, Uncle Billy’s separate identity, and Aunt Ruth’s story about babysitting Willie Nelson.
Mabel died in 1995. Her place in the family survives through those remembered people, the Pritchett and Birdwell photographs and the name Big Mama.
Sources: God Forbid We Just Go to the Butcher · Descendants of John Marbut II, 2025
Look a little closer
The photographs
hold more of the story.
Open any image to see the complete photograph. Captions name the people and places in each photograph.
The opening image and the photograph in the story are the available visual record for this profile.
Return to Oides and Mabel, July 23, 1934 ↑Continue through the archive
One life leads to another.
Ivana Sue Birdwell Anderson
1941–1975
Read the biography →Spouse in the family record
Oides “Bill” Birdwell
1906–1986
Read the biography →Parent
Mary Amby Marbut
1883–1967
Read the biography →Parent
Turner Pinkston Pritchett
1882–1965
Read the biography →SiblingTravis Ruth Pritchett
Read the biography →SiblingWillie Pritchett
Read the biography →SiblingWilliam H. “Bill” Pritchett
Read the biography →Behind this biography
Sources & further reading
These sources support the biography and its continuing research.
- Descendants of John Marbut II, 2025
Compiled family register, pp. 40–42, 92–93 and 220–221. Family recollections and derivative entries are attributed, not treated as original vital records.
- God Forbid We Just Go to the Butcher ↗
Clayton’s September 2026 field story; family testimony, cemetery photographs and Hill County marriage documents.
- The Faces We Keep ↗
Published family album and Clayton’s account of Ivana Sue’s handwritten school paper.
More from UNSUPERVISED*