Debbie Freeman Lowery died Tuesday, May 17, 2011, at the River Region Medical Center. She was 58.

A lifelong resident of Vicksburg, Debbie played many significant roles in her life — daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend and business manager. However, she was loved and will be remembered most in the community for her compassionate and tenacious efforts associated with animal rescue and care. She always maintained a small rescue shelter in her home.

In the mid-1990s, she managed the Vicksburg-Warren Humane Society. She worked closely with the Vicksburg Animal Shelter and aided rescue groups throughout the United States — rescues, transports and adoptions. In the early 2000s, she formalized her personal rescue efforts by establishing Southern Paws Poodle and Small Breed Rescue, though her work extended to any species and any breed. To fund her rescue efforts, she offered the very popular Southern Paws Grooming and Boarding facility.

Her family and friends, in saying goodbye to Debbie, offer this quote as our tribute to her journey on this Earth: “We, who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.” — I. Townsend.

She is survived by her son, John Brady of Vicksburg; her parents, James Anderson and Mary Elizabeth Vaughan of Gonzales, La.; two sisters, Irene Peterson and Johnette Vaughan of Gonzales; and one brother, Hays Vaughan of Natchez.

She was preceded in death by her maternal grandparents, John M. and Mary Tuminello; and her paternal grandparents, Henry and Irene Vaughan.

Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Glenwood Funeral Home Chapel with Monsignor Patrick Farrell officiating. Interment will follow at the Cedar Hill Cemetery. Visitation will be from 12:30 p.m. Thursday until the hour of the service.

Pallbearers will be Paul Peterson Sr., Paul Peterson Jr., Steven Tuminello, Malcolm Allred, Fred Bohn and Beau Lutz.