Doris Barton Maness, 91, passed away on Nov. 8, 2023.
Funeral services were 2 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14, at Shackelford Funeral Directors – Crook Avenue Chapel with Wayne Scott, Roger Maness, Kathy McPherson, Michele Phillips and Terry Johnson officiating.
Burial followed at Henderson City Cemetery. The family received friends at Crook Avenue on Tuesday from noon until 2 p.m. service time.
In lieu of flowers. please make donations to St. Jude Children’s Hospital at stjude.org and/or FHU Associates.
She was born on Aug. 6, 1932, in Chester County. She was the only child of Arthur H. Barton and Bertha Moss Barton.
She graduated from Chester County High School in 1950 after which she attended Freed- Hardeman College and obtained an Associates Degree. She married Andy Maness on May 29, 1954, and spent the next 69 and a half years with him through thick and thin, sickness and health. They were each selflessly committed to the welfare of the other as well as their family, friends and others who came under their wings. She had a long career at Freed-Hardeman University, serving for many years as its Director of Financial Aid. A lasting tribute to that service are the numerous times over the years that her children have encountered former FHU students in faraway places who recognized the name and were quick to give her the credit for having helped get them through school.
She had a gentle spirit beneath which she possessed an amazing toughness and stamina. Her father had two sisters and two brothers, none of whom ever married. In the 1960s and 1970s, she cared for all four of her aging aunts and uncles, who lived 10 miles away on a family farm, until they died, while attending to her family and maintaining a full-time job at FHU.
Over the course of her life, she treated every person the way she would have wanted to be treated and welcomed all persons into her home without regard to race or socioeconomic class. She was the living embodiment of faith working through love. Her life was a shining example for all who knew her. She was a member of the Plainview Church of Christ.
She is survived by her four children, Roger (Kathy) Maness, Karen (Randy) McPherson, Joey Maness and Michele (Glenn) Phillips; her grandchildren, Nichole Karnes, Brandy (Jon) Smith, Summer (Ezra) Taylor, Joseph (Diane) Maness, Austin (Polina) Maness, Taylor (Whitney) McPherson and Hayes (Amy) McPherson; ten great-grandchildren; her beloved sisters-in-law, Willadean Thrasher and Joy (Jack) Whitaker; beloved cousin-in-law, Patsy (Don) Jones; several nieces-in-law and nephews-in-law; and countless friends and persons whose lives were enriched immeasurably by her and her late husband, Andy, over the course of seven decades of marriage.
