RUBY HAYS

SIKESTON -- Funeral for Ruby Amner Hays of Sikeston will be held at 2 p.m. today at Ponder Funeral Home. Pat Hogan will officiate. Burial will be in Garden of Memories Cemetery.

Friends may call at the funeral home from 10 a.m. until service time.

Hays, 87, died Sunday, Nov. 21, 1999, at Miner Nursing Center.

She was born Sept. 1, 1912, in Hardin County, Tenn., daughter of Granville A. and Viola P. Southern Blackwelder. She and Merrill Hays were married Sept. 1, 1956. He died May 22, 1987.

Hays was a postal employee in Washington, D.C., during World War II. She returned to Sikeston and worked in her parents' business, The Miner Grocery Store. The Hays owned and operated Hays Mower Center.

She was a member of Shady Acres Church of Christ.

Survivors include a son, Jefrey Hays of Sikeston; a stepdaughter, Merletta Lambert of Nashville, Tenn.; three sisters, Opal Oakley of Clifton, Tenn., Easter Bowling of Hammond, Ind., Mary Wollfolk of Memphis, Tenn.; two granddaughters; and a stepgrandson. She was preceded in death by two brothers.