Marie Barnum went to heaven peacefully on April 11, 2023. She was born on January 2, 1937, near Turkey Creek, Arkansas, the youngest of the 12 children of Logan and Goldie Berry.
She is survived by her husband of 67 years, D.V. (Dave) Barnum, who cared for her devotedly during her final years. She is also survived by her daughter, Nora Everett; her grandchildren, Lyndsey Daniel (Robert Keeton), Ashley Gray (Tommy Gray), Aaron O’Neal, Alex O’Neal, and Westin McKnight; her great-grandchildren Avery Gray and Oliver O’Neal; and her sister Lila Belle Sutterfield. She is preceded in death by her beloved daughter, Kimela Cowell, and 10 siblings: Fran, Aubrey, Oval, Albert, Silas, Edith, Thomas, Wilma, Evelyn, and Jimmy.
Marie was a beautiful person inside and out.
She had a lovely smile and a great laugh. She loved fashion and jewelry and always looked effortlessly stylish and pretty. Likewise, she enjoyed her career as a hairdresser and liked helping her friends and family look beautiful. She felt privileged to do the hair of many friends for their own funerals.
She was a woman of many talents, a great baker and crafter who could paint, crochet, and sew, with first-place ribbons from the country fair to attest to her abilities. She loved animals and nurtured dogs and cats, chickens, a horse, a donkey, a potbellied pig, and, one time, even a motherless deer. She also loved children and would “squeeze to pieces” any baby she could get her hands on.
Marie was actively involved in her community as the wife of a sheriff of Stone County and as a member of her church. She rarely “went to town” without driving a friend, stopping to visit an ill friend or family member, or delivering a baked good to someone in need of support. She was unfailingly moral and truthful: a model Christian woman. She was a cherished “Mom Mom” and “Aunt Marie” to many and will be greatly missed.
Services will be held at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Fox, Arkansas, at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, April 14. Donations in her memory may be sent to the Alzheimer’s Association of America at 225 N. Michigan Ave., Fl. 17, Chicago, IL 60601 or to this website, https://www.alz.org.
