IRENE WILKERSON

DEXTER -- Funeral for Irene Wilkerson of Dexter will be held at 2 p.m. today at Watkins and Sons Chapel in Dexter. The Rev. Fred Leist will officiate, with burial in Dexter Cemetery.

Friends may call at the chapel after 1 p.m.

Wilkerson, 93, died Wednesday, July 8, 1998, at Doctors Regional Medical Center in Poplar Bluff.

She was born Aug. 27, 1904, in Odumn, Ind., daughter of Gardner Alexander and Mary Alice Starks Ray. She and Lewis Wilkerson were married in 1935. He died Sept. 9, 1975.

Wilkerson taught school in Stoddard County 12 years, and in Royal Oak, Mich., 28 years. A new elementary school in Warren, Mich., was named in her honor.

She and a group of women organized The Child Concern Center Inc. of Butler County to help families in crisis. She was also one of a group who started the Friends of Children Day Care Center in Poplar Bluff in 1990.

Wilkerson was a member of First United Methodist Church in Poplar Bluff and served in local and district offices of United Methodist Women.

She was a member and past president of Poplar Bluff Garden Club, National Retired Teachers Association, Michigan State Teachers Association, and Poplar Bluff Retired Teachers Association.

Survivors include a brother, Gordon "Bill" Ray of Poplar Bluff; three sisters, Doris Cain of Essex, Ruth Marshall of Poplar Bluff, and Olive Mitchell of Rogers, Ark.

She was preceded in death by three sisters and three brothers.