Margaret Gorton Barnes, born Sept. 25, 1941 in Houston, died Thursday, Sept. 30, 2010, at Thomas Hospital in Fairhope after a brave if brief battle with cancer.
She graduated from St. Vincent’s Academy in Shreveport in l959. She received her bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University in 1962, and her master’s degree in 1971.
She taught in the public schools of Shreveport and Baton Rouge, La., and worked in the tourist industry in New Orleans and in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
After her retirement in Fairhope in 2005, she served as a volunteer at the Fairhope Museum of History and at the Fairhope Public Library. She took as many Eastern Shore life-long learning classes as she could schedule and particularly enjoyed the birding group. She served as secretary of the Rock Creek Garden Club.
She was preceded in death by her father and mother, Lester H. Gorton and Frances Watts Gorton of Shreveport, La.
Survivors include two sons, George Furman “Trey” (Rebecca) Barnes of London, and Potomac, Md., and Christopher Gorton Barnes, of Fairhope and Bayonne, N.J.; three grandchildren, Matthew Furman Barnes, John Robert Barnes and Camille Tillery Barnes of Potomac; two brothers, William Edward (Marcelle) Gorton of Houston, and Robert Lester (Rosalind) Gorton of Manhattan, Kan.; sister, Mary Gorton McBride, of Fairhope; several nieces and nephews; three particular friends, George Furman Barnes and Myrtis Barnes of Fairhope, and Ann M. McLaurin of Fairhope.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5 at St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Fairhope. Visitation will be held in the St. Lawrence Room immediately following the requiem mass.
The family requests memorial donations be made to the Fairhope Museum of History or the Fairhope Public Library.
Arrangements are by Wolfe-Bayview Funeral Homes & Crematory Inc., Fairhope.
