Willie Elmond Barnes

The early evening sun streaking across Buzzard Lake, set in motion a blaze of glory at Johns Bayou, Ward Bayou, Sumrall Bayou, Moon Lake and Rodgers Bend, and in an instant, paused, to note the absence of the pulse of Willie Elmond Barnes. On Friday Evening, April 14th, 2017, Elmond Barnes slipped the bonds of earth quietly, surrounded by family members, in his home on Johns Bayou Road. These backwaters embraced the very essence of Elmond Barnes. He lived and breathed the primitive untouched beauty that supported his life-long allegiance to this natural world. It was these quiet times, when he was on the water, that he came to formalize those thoughts that would find their way to form. These wide- ranging ideas, as diverse and challenging as his interests, were often debated on his back porch. Akin to the Forum in Rome, opinions were diverse and rigorously presented and drew a like response. His views, largely on politics and current social issues, often found their way to the Letters to The Editor columns in the local newspaper. The clarity with which he annotated the flaws in current policies were only a glimpse into an articulate mind, and as often as not, hilarious. A master carpenter and cabinet maker, his custom-built homes adorned the pages of prestige publications, Mississippi Magazine and Southern Living among them. Raising a large family, each successful in their own right, he lived the examples he wished to set. Hard work, honesty, loyalty, responsibility, self-respect and fairness. His legacy lives on through the lives of his children in medicine, defense manufacturing, law, and family values. People faced with uncertainties about how a task should be accomplished often find themselves at one of the big box hardware stores searching for a tool of some type to address the issue. Not Elmond – he would invent one. From devices that kept rabbits out of his garden, flies off the porch or peel the inner skin from a bell pepper, a new mouse trap design, a coon, rabbit, squirrel or fish trap – nothing was off limits. Arriving at Elmond’s place on any given day, smoke rolling out of another batch of smoked mullet, gave you an opportunity to be confronted with a solution currently in development, or just completed. In the days when TV antennas had to be rotated to improve signal quality, he put together some combination of solenoids, switches and motors that allowed him to rotate the antenna from his recliner with a single joy stick with a golf ball for the handle. It worked. If he wanted a new boat, like his father before him, he built one. There was nothing he could not accomplish with PVC. The stillness in these quiet backwaters will always harbor the spirit of Elmond Barnes and remain the sentinel of a life well lived. He is preceded in death by his wife of 69 years, Tevis Barnes; his parents, John Daniel and Sarah Josephine Barnes; his brothers, Louis Barnes, J.D. Barnes, Eddie Barnes; and sisters, Hazel McClain, Robena Varnon, and Annie Touchstone. He is survived by his daughters, Carol Williams (Calvin), Shirley Damonte, Donna Casey (Elmer), Betsy Barnes Martin (Keith); his son, Terry Barnes (Amanda); 10 grandchildren; 17 great grandchildren; and one great-great grandchild. Visitation will be held on Sunday, April 23, 2017 from 12:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. at the Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Home in Vancleave. Funeral services will follow at 2:00 p.m., with interment at the Community of Christ Church cemetery. The Vancleave Chapel of Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.