Hattie Rose Barnhill

Hattie Rose Barnhill, age 102, died at Vickers Personal Care Home Sunday May 20,2012.

Visitation was held Tuesday, May 22 at First Baptist Church, Starkville with funeral  following at 1:00 p.m A graveside service was held at Oakwood Cemetery in Winona at 3:15 p.m.

Born 3/19/1910 to Dora Hardwick Harville and George William Harville in Northeast Mississippi close to Corinth as the fourth of seven children, Hattie Barnhill grew up knowing the value of work and how to pinch pennies. She attended high school at Duck Hill, did well with her studies, was a star basketball player, but fell in love with a young barber who had moved to town to open a shop and owned a Star convertible car with a rumble seat (a rarity) and with whom all the eligible ladies were competing for attention. After the tenth grade at age sixteen she married this young barber, Henry Calvin Rose, in May, 1926. They had four children, H. C., Dora, Jim, and Lloyd, and lived in Duck Hill until 1943 when they moved to Winona, MS to open another barber shop.

All the children finished high school in Winona and went off to college. Hattie always regretted not finishing high school and she and Henry always instilled in the children that they would go to college. The family wound up with a pharmacist, a college professor, an investment banker, and a dentist—all of whom achieved a masters or doctorate degrees. Hattie went to dietitian school in various places, received certification, started the school cafeteria in Winona, and was working there when Henry fell dead with a massive heart attack in 1949. She had two children married and in college at the time, two at home and was thirty-nine years old.

She continued to manage the cafeteria and take dietitian courses in the summer until 1952 when her first grandchild was born in Louisville, MS and she came to visit. There she met and later married Marshall (Cap) Mitchell. After about a year of marriage Cap Mitchell contracted muscular dystrophy and lived only about six months after that. About 1956 she married Edgar Barnhill who was a postal worker. He had no children and was very loving to her children, her mother who visited often, and her grandchildren. She added school cafeterias in Winston County and was managing five when she retired in the late 60s. Edgar contracted liver cancer soon after that and she nursed him until his death in 1972.

After his death she moved to Starkville to work in real estate, which she did in early 70s. She loved church activities and volunteer jobs and was always out and about visiting others or doing things for them. In 1998 she had health problems and moved to Vickers Personal Care Home (then Scribner’s) and has lived there since.

H. C. was a pharmacist, now retired, in Ridgeland, MS. Dora was an accounting professor at MSU, now retired, Jim was an investment banker in Dallas, TX (died with cancer in 1984), Lloyd was a dentist, now retired, from Starkville. Hattie has 59 living descendants, i.e., children , in–laws, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren.