Edna Ford

SERVICES:  SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 20102:00 P. M.  GRAVESIDE SERVICEMAGNOLIA CEMETERY MERIDIAN, MSVISITATION:  FRIDAY,MARCH 19, 20105:00 - 8:00 P. M. MCCLAIN-HAYS FUNERAL HOMEINTERMENT:  MAGNOLIA CEMETERYMERIDIAN, MS Edna Brown Harbour Holloway Ford, 87, graduated from Meridian High as valedictorian and class president with highest honors and penned the Meridian High Alma Mater.  She earned bachelor’s and masters’ degrees from Mississippi State University and graduated with Special Honors and Who’s Who Among Students in Colleges and Universities.              Edna’s love of literature and English inspired countless students to share her enthusiasm and love for great literature.  She taught secondary, college, and Sunday school classes for 49 years! Edna was honored by former students Dr. John and Beth Clay when they established the Edna Harbour Ford English Literature Scholarship presented annually to a deserving student at East Mississippi Community College where Edna taught sixteen years. Edna was Dean and first director of Lifetime Quest for Learning in Retirement at Meridian Community College in her so-called retirement years. As a docent of hard hat tours of the Meridian Opera House, she enjoyed watching the restoration to the present Riley Center. In 2000, she was serving an unprecedented fourth term as president of the Meridian Symphony Orchestra and helped bring the National Symphony Orchestra to Meridian. Edna was most recently honored at the death of her dear friend Emma McCain who, through a generous bequeathal to the MSO, continued funding for the Edna Ford Children’s Concerts for all fourth graders in Lauderdale and surrounding counties. Edna’s dedication to advocacy for the arts earned her the Mississippi Ageless Hero Creativity Award in 1999. She served as president of the Jackson and Tupelo chapters of the American Association of University Women. Edna loved being a part of Trinity Presbyterian and Poplar Springs Drive United Methodist where she served as Mississippi’s Moderator of Presbyterian Women and taught Sunday school.  Clubs she loved were Fortnightly Music Club, Pierian, Galaxy, Samuel Dale Chapter of DAR, Spendthrifters, and Merrehope.  All were an important part of her life in Meridian, the city Edna loved most!  Edna is survived by daughters Olivia (Hal) Reese and Dr. Beth (Tommy) Jackson, grandchildren Edie Reese Montalvo, Caroline Reese Gilder, Benjamin Reese III, Jennifer Jackson Bond, Leigh Jackson Yates and great grandchildren Maurice Duplantis IV, Hal Duplantis, Suzannah Gilder, and Josephine Gilder. Edna was preceded in death by husbands R. A. Harbour, Robert Holloway, and Dr. Kinsman Ford, her father Oliver Brown, mother Lillian Davis, brothers Davis Brown, Oliver Brown, Jr., Morris Brown, and sisters Louise Neal and Alta Jones.Pallbearers:  Dr. Lamar Neal, Goldsmith Brown, Gene Livingston, Jefferson Gilder, Ben Reese III, Chad Bond and Jesse Yates.