POPE – Bertha Ware Ellis, 78, homemaker, died Wednesday of heart disease at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi in Oxford. Services will be at 1 p.m. Sunday at Nelson Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, where she was a member, with burial in Pope Chapel-Nelson Chapel Cemetery. Cooley’s Mortuary in Batesville has charge. She was a member of Order of the Eastern Star-Victory Star Chapter 121. She leaves eight daughters, Gladys Ellis, Nettie Jean Ellis and Myrtle Shaw, all of Pope, Margaret Cosby of Enid, Rosie Hamilton of Chicago, Emma Hentz of Sardis, Bertha Bobo of Courtland and Helen Ellis of Detroit; four sons, Herman ‘Sonny’ Ellis and Lamar ‘Bill’ Ellis, both of Pope, Preston Ellis of Harvey, Ill., and Earl Ellis of Detroit; four sisters, Louise Clark of Pope, Lelia Strung of Courtland, and Janie Johnson and Ester Betts, both of Batesville; a brother, Gavin Johnson of Memphis, 36 grandchildren and 45 great-grandchildren.

Source:  Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN) – Saturday, April 4, 1998