Elsie May Dawkins

Services for Elsie May Dawkins, 92, who died Saturday, Dec. 16, 2006, at Natchez Community Hospital, will be 1 p.m. Tuesday at Laird Funeral Home Union Street Chapel with the Rev. Dr. John Larson officiating.

Burial will follow at Union Church Cemetery under the direction of Laird Funeral Home.

Visitatiaon will be from 5 to 8 p.m. today and from noon until service time Tuesday.

Mrs. Dawkins was born Nov. 10, 1914, in Chase, La., the daughther of Henry Imon and Martha Eveline Coulter McDuff. She taught school for several years in Crowville, La. She retired as director of Jefferson County Welfare Department in 1980, after 31 years of service. She was a member of Friends Five O and served as a volunteer at Natchez Community Hospital. She was a member of First Presbyterian Church of Natchez and was a docent of the Gandy collection at Stratton Chapel.

Mrs. Dawkins was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, Ernest E. Dawkins Sr.

Survivors include four sons, Ernest E. Dawkins Jr. of Picayune, Imon McDuff Dawkins and his wife, Betty, both of Vidalia, Stephen Fairley Dawkins and his wife, Brenda, both of Vicksburg and Walter E. Dawkins II, M.D. of Natchez; eight grandchildren, Dwight McDuffy Dawkins of Memphis, Tenn., Penny Ables of Vicksburg, Barrie Ann Dawkins of Picayune, Walter E. Dawkins of Memphis, Tenn., Tammy Steed and her husband, Ray, both of Vicksburg, Laura Dawkins of Nashville, Tenn., Stephen Imon Dawkins and his wife, Emily, both of Baton Rouge and Michael Dustin Dawkins and his wife, Tori, both of Vidalia; five great-grandchildren; and two sisters, Grace Arnold of West Monroe, La. and Katie Christenson and her husband, Jim, both of Temple, Texas.

Pallbearers will be Ernest E. Dawkins Jr, Imon McDuff Dawkins, Stephen Fairley Dawkins, Walter E. Dawkins II, M.D., Dwight McDuff Dawkins and Walter E. Dawkins III.