To request a copy of this photo for your own personal use, please contact our state coordinator. If you are not a family member or the original photographer — please refrain from copying or distributing this photo to other websites.
Thank you for visiting the Arkansas Gravestone Photo Project. On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in Arkansas, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 3/25/23 • Approved: 3/26/23 • Last Updated: 3/29/23 • R1478831-G1478831-S3
January 14, 1934 - September 27, 2019
Mary Louise Manning (affectionately referred to as "Madea"), was born January 14, 1934 to the late Lillie Mae Frost-Jones and the late Roosevelt Manning. She professed Christ at an early age and joined Douglas Chapel Baptist Church under the leadership of Rev. W. N. Brewster.
Mary Louise attended and graduated from Washington High School and attended one year of college at Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, Arkansas.
After a Sunday night of singing with the Douglas Chorus she caught the eye of who became the love of her life, Ellis. They joined in holy matrimony on January 12, 1954 and had been married for 65 years and 9 months at the time of her death.
Mary Louise was proud and often bragged about having 18 sisters and brothers. In addition to her parents, she is preceded in death by brothers Lessell, Rothell, Friley, Theodore and Carl Manning; Bobby
Ray, Franklin and Delano Jones; sisters Florice "Sugar Lump" Graham, Oletha Johnson, and Shirley Ray Jones-Maule.
Left to cherish her memory is her "boyfriend' Dr. Ellis Wilkins; daughters Connie, Cynthia and Charlotte Wilkins, Chyrel (Rev. Clarence) Thornton all of Little Rock, Arkansas; Helen (John) Christian) of Strong Arkansas; Dwanda (Rev. Rufus) Robinson of Texarkana, Arkansas, and David (Scheena)
Wilkins of EI Dorado. Sisters Jackie (Alton) Stennis, Linda Liddell of Pine Bluff Arkansas, Virginia Williams of Los Angeles, California; Genell Jones-Bailey; George (Melanie) Jones, Jr., Roy L. (lna) Jones, and Roosevelt Jones all of Lancaster, CA; three special daughters Darlene Smith, Lisa Kimball and Valarie Easter. She was blessed with 21 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren.
Contributed on 3/25/23 by debbraszymanski
Email This Contributor
Suggest a Correction
Record #: 1478831