BESSIE OLIPHANT

EAST PRAIRIE -- Funeral service for Bessie Lorene Oliphant of East Prairie will be held at 1 p.m. today at Shelby Funeral Chapel in East Prairie. Pastor Richard Farquhar will officiate, with burial in Dogwood Cemetery.

Oliphant, 72, died Thursday, April 24, 1997, at Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston.

She was born Feb. 9, 1925, at Crosno in Mississippi County, daughter of James and Robbie Taylor Mitchell. She and Thomas J. "Bill" Oliphant were married Aug. 19, 1954, in St. Louis. He died Oct. 18, 1987.

Survivors include two sons, Leslie Siars of St. Louis, Terry Oliphant of East Prairie; a daughter, Betty Oliver of East Prairie; three brothers, Joe and Bill Mitchell of East Prairie, Frankie Mitchell of Charleston; two sisters, Elsie Logan of Porterville, Calif., Lucille Tolliver of Union City, Tenn.; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by a son, a great-grandson, four sisters, and four brothers.