Mary Elizabeth Black Simcoke was born Jan. 7, 1913, in St. Louis, Mo., and died Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008, at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., at the age of 95.

Elizabeth Simcoke was the only child of James Kennedy Black and Alice Koeneke Black, of St. Louis. Elizabeth attended Stephens College and Washington University. She worked as a church secretary until her marriage in St. Louis on Dec. 9, 1939, to Richard Pritchett Simcoke. They made their first home at New Survey, near Steele, Mo.,, and owned and operated Dolphin Land and Gin Companies. She moved to Kennett with her family in 1959. While in Kennett, she was active in PEO, Garden Club, Twentieth Century Club, Girl Scouts, Steele Book Club and volunteered at the hospital and library. She actively participated in her family's company, Dolphin Land and Gin Companies, and was also involved in their orange business in Florida. She and her husband traveled extensively and lived part-time in Lighthouse Point and Sarasota, Fla. during the winter months. She loved to learn, read, knit, visit with her friends and family, travel, play bridge and entertain.

She was preceded in death by her husband in Sept. 2001, her mother and father, and her infant daughter, Sally Simcoke.

She is survived by her daughters, Ann Wood and her husband, Roy, of Sarasota, Susan Rodenbaugh, of Orlando, Fla., and Judy Earnest and her husband, Chuck, of Kennett; her grandchildren, Robert Wood, of Tampa, Fla., Heidi Rodenbaugh Armstrong and her husband, Scott, of Orlando, Grant Earnest, of Arlington, Va., and Emily Earnest, of Kennett, and her great-grandchildren, Parker and Brooke Armstrong, of Orlando.

Graveside services will be held Monday, Jan. 14, in St. Louis through Lupton Funeral Home.

The family requests memorials be made to the Dunklin County Library, Girl Scouts, First Presbyterian Church or a charity of your choice.