Elsie Mae Demas Barnes died Wednesday, July 23, 2014, at Advocate Christ Memorial Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill. She was 87.

A former resident of Vicksburg, she was a 1944 graduate of Bowman High School. She received her Associate of Arts in theater from Loop Junior College in Chicago, and was retired from North American Insurance Company in Chicago. She was a member of Loving Unity Society No. 1 of Vicksburg, and Pleasant Green Baptist Church of Chicago, where she served on the Mother Board and the Missionary Society.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Sylvester Garland and Sarah Noble Garland.

Survivors include two sons, William Barnes, III of Reno, Nev., and James Barnes of Atlanta; two daughters, Jacqueline Barnes Wilder of Michigan City, Ind., and Gwendolyn Barnes Taylor of Chicago; eight grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild and other relatives and friends, including Saltine Austin-Tyler and Edna Green, both of Vicksburg, and Lonnie Ray Jackson of Desoto, Texas.

Services will be noon Wednesday, July 30, 2014, at Pleasant Green Baptist Church in Chicago under the direction of A.R. Leak & Sons Funeral Home.