Marion H.

JOHN FURR

Tupelo--Marion Hansell (John) Furr died on January 28, 2007 at Sanctuary Hospice House in Tupelo, Mississippi. Mr. Furr was born December 22, 1923 in Aberdeen, Mississippi, to Dr. Esta Furr and Lottie Winnafred Hansell. He married Pearl Grey Canterbury in Lovely Lane Methodist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 13, 1946. He was a bit of a nomad, having moved 33 times in his lifetime; however, as he once wrote, "home has always been where mother was. She was and is the glue that held it all together." Prior to his recent illness, he and his wife lived in a cottage at Traceway Methodist Retirement Community in Tupelo, Mississippi.

To attend Sunflower Junior College (now Mississippi Delta Community College) after high school in 1941, he sold a cow, received work and band scholarships, milked cows, worked on a farm, rang the class change bell, and was the college postmaster. When he graduated in December 1943 with an AA degree in pre-med and music, the school owed him $120. He entered the University of Mississippi in January 1943 but withdrew in March to fulfill active duty orders from the Army.

He then began a 23 year military career, first as an enlisted soldier in the Army and later as an officer in the Air Force. As an enlisted soldier, he was a rifleman, anti tank gunner (30 and 60 mm), medical corpsman, orthopedic specialist, clinical laboratory technician, payroll clerk, pharmacist, personnel clerk, and clinical laboratory instructor. Receiving a direct commission during the Korean War as a clinical laboratory officer, he became a hospital administrator, retiring in 1966 as a major. From 1966 to 1969, he was Director of Administration and Finance for Middle Eastern operations of Commonwealth Services International, Inc, at Dhahran International Airport, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

He returned to the University of Mississippi in 1970, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Education in May 1971, a MeD in June 1972, and, as he liked to call it, an ABD (all but dissertation) in Educational Administration in May 1974. From 1977 to 1989, he was a math teacher at Tupelo High School. He then retired "to spend full-time caring for and supporting the star and light of my life and mother of our children." Active in church and community, he helped organize and launch the Pontotoc County, Mississippi, Habitat for Humanity and was a tutor for Central Alabama Laubach Literacy Council in Montgomery.

He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, William Frazier Furr, who was killed in action in Germany in World War II, and Dr. Richard Theron Furr of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, who died October 19, 2006. He is survived by his wife, Pearl, and four children, Mary Louise Furr and her husband Felix Charles DiPalma, Jr., of Texas, William Frazier Furr and wife Martha of Montgomery, Alabama, Joseph Patrick Furr and his wife Dorothy of Great Falls, Montana, and Elizabeth Anne (Libby) Furr of Oxford, Mississippi. He is also survived by his brother Reverend Esta Stanley Furr of Tupelo, Mississippi, seven grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and eight nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to the American Forests Katrina ReLeaf Fund ( http://www.americanforests.org/ or PO Box 2000, Washington, DC 20013).