Elsie Marie Leonard

Elsie Marie Leonard, born October 6, 1932, in Ruleville, Mississippi, passed peacefully at Craighead Nursing Center on March 19, 2025.  After growing up in the Mississippi delta, Marie moved to St. Louis to attend Mallinckrodt School of X-Ray.

With that training she was able to raise and support three children as a single mother.  She moved her family back to Mississippi in 1965, then eventually to Jonesboro, Arkansas where she was Chief X-Ray Technologist for six years.  During this time Marie worked closely with the state legislature to establish and develop a professional registry program for Radiologic Technologist in the state of Arkansas. In 1976 she accepted a position as Chief X-Ray Tech in New Albany, Mississippi, eventually finishing her career in Tupelo, Mississippi at Radiology of Tupelo while serving two terms as President of Mississippi Society of Radiologic Technologist.

After retirement “Meemaw” dedicated her life to her seven “Precious dolls”, her grandbabies.  She never failed to answer the call to babysit when and where needed.  As she had done with her own children she attended every possible baseball, basketball, and football game, gymnastics meet, golf tournament, tennis match and band concert.  Marie eventually settled again in Jonesboro, Arkansas where she was an active member of First Baptist Church, singing in the choir and serving as President of Women’s Missionary Union.

Marie is preceded in death by her daughter, Lucretia Ann Mason, her parents, Lewis and Zitella Kilgore, four brothers, Jessie, Robert, Hugh and Lewis Kilgore, dear sister and brother-in-law Louise and Edward Onstot, and several nieces and nephews.  She is survived by one son, David Leonard (Melanie) of Jonesboro; one daughter, Carmen Wilkerson (Brian) of St. Louis, Missouri; one son-in-law, Randy Mason (Lucretia) of Columbia South Carolina; seven grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be at Emerson Funeral Home on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, from noon until 1:30. A graveside service will be 2:00 PM, March 25, 2025, at Pine Log Cemetery with Ethan Leonard, Eli Leonard, William Mason, Dylan Sutton, Nathan Duncan and William Hicks serving as pallbearers.

For lasting memorials, please consider First Baptist Church, WMU fund, 701 S. Main, Jonesboro, Arkansas, 72401.  To sign an online guestbook, go to emersonfuneralhome.com.