Julia Arnold

A celebration of life will be held for Julia Agnes Morrissey Arnold at 2 p.m. on Thursday, July 2, 2026, at Riverwood Family, with burial to follow in Mission Hill Baptist Church Cemetery. Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 1, at Riverwood Family and will resume at 1 p.m. until time of service on Thursday.

Julia Agnes Morrissey Arnold, of Wesson, born in Charlotte, North Carolina, died at 80 years old on June 27 after a short illness at Select Specialty Hospital in Jackson.

She graduated from Jamaica High School in Queens, New York, attended New York University, and received an associate degree in English and literature from Hunter College, a part of the New York City University system, and pursued a career in bookkeeping and office management that encompassed jobs at Newsweek Magazine, The Alexander Company–a public relations consulting firm, Dente & Cristina Advertising, West-Park Presbyterian Church, and Westside Ecumenical Ministry for Elderly in New York City.

Mrs. Arnold came to Mississippi in 2010 from New York City with her husband, Robert Arnold, after the death of her father, Thomas Raymond Morrissey, to resettle in a home where he and his late wife, Maggie Ward Morrissey, had lived since the 1980s–a renovated farmhouse built in the early 1900s by Maggie’s father in rural Wesson in Lincoln County.

In addition to her husband, Robert Arnold, her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Ann Arnold, also survives her along with dozens of Mississippi cousins: Pauline Ward Harris Sistrunk, Shirley Magee (Harley), of Brookhaven; Jimmy Lovette, Ward Gaston (Darlene), Rhoda Shirley, all of Wesson; and Stephen Ward (Betty Karen). Passionate about compassion for animals and an advocate for their rights, she also leaves behind three precious pets: her dog, Rexie, and cats, Inky and Maggie Blue, a stray she found in the parking lot at Magnolia Blues Restaurant in Brookhaven.

Over the past 16 years as a Wesson resident, Mrs. Arnold has been an active member of the Wesson Lions Club and Institute for Learning in Retirement at Co-Lin. She and her husband created an endowed scholarship at Co-Lin. She had a lifetime interest in arts and crafts, collected dolls, and looked forward to spring colors in her yard with blooming day lilies, roses, and camelias.

In lieu of flowers, her family requests donations through the Wesson Lions Club Julia Arnold Fund to support sepsis education and research.