Madonna

Before she passed, my mother-in-law asked that I turn her obituary into more of a life story and then read it at her memorial service, which I did this morning. This is what I wrote and shared:

In the early spring of 1944, the world was at war. The Germans were retreating from the Crimean Peninsula, and American forces conducted massive bombing raids to prepare for the coming D-Day invasion. And in Arkansas, on April 11, a massive tornado outbreak tragically claimed many lives, including fifteen near Brinkley. But in Mangrum, Arkansas, on the following day, a Wednesday – April 12, 1944 – it was a sunny and exceptionally calm day. And on that day, an eighteen-year-old Lucille Bell and her twenty-year-old husband, J.L. – married for just eleven months – gave birth to a little girl that they named Madonna Ann.

Only 153 babies born in the United States in 1944 were named Madonna. That’s 153 out of 2,794,800 babies, which if you do the math, is one out of every 20,000 babies. So maybe her name was not technically one in a million, but everyone who came to know our Madonna knows that is how she turned out anyway.

Madonna was loved deeply from the start by her family, and four-and-a-half years after she arrived on the planet, her world was forever altered—and her only-child status destroyed—when Lucille and J.L. welcomed a son into the world that they named Roger.

Madonna loved Roger right away and took her big sister role seriously by always looking after her baby brother to make sure that he was okay. They rode bikes together, played church together, fought wasp nests together, and climbed trees together. They grew up on a farm, mostly cotton, and Madonna worked in the field until she was fifteen years old. Then, one day, she walked out of the field at lunch time and learned that Jim Isabell had a job for her at the gin, so she threw down her cotton sack and took off and never looked back.

Madonna grew up with a father who took her to ride in the fields with him, took her to ballgames for her cheerleading duties, and made sure she knew that she was loved. And she had a mother who taught her so many things: to cook and to bake; how to stretch money a long way; and one of her lifelong loves—how to shop. At home, Madonna said, Mom was the boss and Daddy was the backup.

Faith was a central feature of her formative years, and she was baptized at the Black Oak church of Christ when she was fifteen years old. Education was important, too. Madonna attended Caraway School from first grade through high school graduation and was involved in many things: the annual staff; the BETA Club; cheerleading; Daughters of the American Revolution; and Student Council. She was the Homecoming Queen in the tenth grade.

Madonna graduated from high school at the beginning of the turbulent 1960s, and her world changed dramatically two short months later when she left the farm and moved to Memphis to study at the Memphis School of Commerce. She lived in a boarding house with eight girls and roomed with Mary Branscam, Madonna had never been away from home, never done her own laundry, and had never even washed her own hair. For the first week she was homesick and cried every day, but she knew that she had to stay so that her parents would not lose the money that they invested. However, the very next weekend they met a group of boys from an all-boys boarding house, and she remembered that things started looking a little better.

At Memphis School of Commerce, she received twenty dollars every month: $12.50 went to the boarding house; and $2.50 went for bus rides, but she had the entire remaining five dollars to last the entire month and spend however she wanted. Her favorite treat was going to the Baptist Hospital cafeteria to get a banana split.

The world opened up for Madonna when she studied in Memphis. She enjoyed going to flea markets on her lunch break, and she worked at the Donovan Cotton Company where she got to travel and meet people from different places for the first time. Her education launched a career in tax preparation and bookkeeping on her return to Northeast Arkansas. She was a maestro with a Ten Key Pad and took immense pride in serving the agricultural community and families in the Buffalo Island area over multiple generations. She looked back on her career with pride as a small business owner and fondly recalled her community service work at Fourth of July picnics.

Above all her professional accomplishments, however, her life was defined by devotion to her faith and to her family. She was a longtime member of the Mangrum church of Christ and later a member of the Monette church of Christ. As a church member she led efforts to collect food and clothes for the less fortunate and taught many children as a Sunday school teacher.

Her special pride was her family. As a wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, she established a legacy of love, grace, and hospitality. Her home became the central gathering place for generations of family and friends.

Madonna first became a mother when she was twenty-four years old when she gave birth to Jalena Ann – although she gave birth on a scary night when what became legendary tornadoes destroyed much of Jonesboro. Due to the chaos at the hospital, Madonna was placed on a metal table without a mattress to give birth and, preoccupied with giving birth for the first time of course, did not know what was going on outside until her mother explained it to her after the fact. Despite the scary night, being a mother became her greatest gift, and Jalena would always have that special place in her heart.

Two years later, Madonna gave birth to a second child, JoEllen. Madonna was living in Blytheville at the time, and although there were no tornadoes this time around, it was tax season, and Jody decided to make her appearance on April the 14th. Madonna actually went into work that morning before calling her mother to take her to the hospital where she soon added another special daughter to her family.

Four years later there were no tornadoes and no tax deadlines in October when she gave birth to a son that she named Heath Lee. Given the lack of chaos, she described her third time to give birth as, and I quote: “Nothing exciting. Peaceful.” She was now the mother of three special children.

Just over six years later, on New Year’s Day in 1981, after falling in love, her family became complete when she married Dewey Plunkett, which began over forty-five years of married life and adventures together.

In her marriage to Dewey, she loved becoming the mother of two more special children: James Lee was in the tenth grade at the time, and Madonna recalled that he thought his dad was marrying someone wealthy because she drove a Lincoln Continental: to which she later said, “Boy, did I fool him.” James Lee brought much fun to her life. And she also loved becoming a mother to Michel. Madonna loved sharing gifts and experiences with Missy, fondly remembering in particular taking Missy get her first perm, and also to purchase her first pageant dress.

With all of those experiences, and all of those people, and all of that love, you would think that would be enough for one person’s life. But for Madonna, the best was yet to come in a word that would make her light up more than any other word in the history of words: Grandchildren.

Erica was the first. Madonna chose the name Grandmother, which some questioned, but when Erica was old enough to say the word “Gran-mudder,” everyone’s heart melted and the name was secured.

Grandmother loved her children more than her own life. After Erica came Nick, and then Justin. Ashley, and then Hillary. Hannah, and then Bradley. And then last but not least, Jenna.

Talk about special memories. Grandmother brought so many smiles to her grandchildren, like:

• A very recent and particularly hilarious and embarrassing Christmas gift.
• Glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and in the sky.
• Reading Little House on the Prairie books together.
• Movie nights on the comfy couch eating ice cream and drinking chocolate milk.
• Excitement over wedding dresses.
• Accidentally flipping Erica over in a recliner when giving her a facial.
• A surprising dance at a wedding.
• Breakfasts of homemade biscuits and gravy, bacon and sausage, eggs and approximately eleven jars of assorted jams and jellies.
• Brushing tangled hair and responding to painful complaints by saying, “Beauty is pain.”
• Leaving the vowels out of very specific words.
• Riding roller coasters while yelling and expressing a deep need for a bathroom.
• Deep conversations about mission trips and donating money for the education of African children that she would never meet.
• Collecting many things, like antiques, and make-up compacts.
• Pink popsicles in the freezer.
• Snowmen in the bathroom.
• Sharing stories from her history but asking for stories from yours—and remembering.

Just to name a few.

Madonna was a lifelong learner and needed little encouragement to take a trip to some place new and to ask questions and learn about new places and experiences from her children and grandchildren.

And if life wasn’t full enough, then came great-grandchildren. Madonna was over-the-moon in love with Avery, Asher, and Asa, who authored a dazzling final chapter of her life. (It was recently noted that we are pretty sure that Asher’s first food was gravy.)

But unfortunately, all wonderful stories really do come to an end.

Madonna did experience much loss in her life. Losing her dad to pancreatic cancer while in her early forties. Losing her mom over twenty years later. Losing her only brother to pancreatic cancer. And having to experience the loss of a child in losing James Lee. 

And finally came her own journey.

Incredibly, she won her own fight against pancreatic cancer month after month – for over twenty months – before her physical body could not continue any longer. She passed from this life on September 7, 2026, Labor Day, making full use of her eighty-two years, four months, and twenty-six days. The last thing she did before going to the hospice house was to get her nails done. She lived life every moment that she could, and she died having been loved, having loved, and having known that she is loved.

She is survived by her husband, four of her children, eight grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and in-laws and future in-laws that she regarded as immediate family. And many, many friends that loved her very much.

Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer-poet died about a week before Madonna, and one of his poems that he titled, The Loved Ones, seems appropriate now:

The loved ones we call the dead

depart from us and for a while

are absent. And then as if

called back by our love, they come

near us again. They enter our dreams.

We feel they have been near us

when we have not thought of them.

They are simply here, simply waiting

while we are distracted among

our obligations. At last

it comes to us: They live now

in the permanent world.

We are the absent ones.