Marian Jean Berry

Memorial services for Mrs. Marian Jean Berry will be conducted at 11:00 AM Saturday, February 10, 2024, at New Hebron Baptist Church with the Reverend Earl Clark officiating.  Inurnment will follow in the New Hebron Cemetery.  Mrs. Berry, age 87, formerly of New Hebron, MS and Jackson, MS, passed away on Saturday, December 16, 2023 in El Dorado Hills, CA.  Saulters Moore Funeral Home has been entrusted with local arrangements.

Born in Sylvarena, MS, Marian moved to New Hebron, MS in her teens when her father, Lloyd Hord, became principal of the town’s high school. There she met her future husband, Roy Alfred Berry Jr, when she and her mother, Valera Hord, came to visit his mother, Fannie Belle Berry, who was active in the local women’s organization. Al first saw Marian as she was standing in the living room of the Berry family’s striking sandstone home, which Fannie Belle Berry had designed and had built in 1939; Al was smitten.  They would eventually marry June 6, 1957, and were together for 57 years until Al passed in 2012.

Marian earned a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi College. After Al earned a doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill the couple moved to Jackson, MS with their two young sons, Roy Alfred Berry III and Jefferson Hord Berry. Marian taught high school chemistry and Al was a chemistry professor at Millsaps College. They spent summers traveling the country with their sons. After she retired, Marian was active in the local garden club and Colonial Dames while Al continued to teach and chaired the college’s chemistry department. After Al retired, they moved back to New Hebron into the sandstone house on Cherry Avenue in which they had first met.

After settling into New Hebron life, where they were active in the New Hebron Baptist Church and enjoyed regular gatherings with Al’s cousins and their friends, Marian experienced health challenges including a cerebral hemorrhage and lymphoma, and Al began developing what was later determined to be Lewy Body Dementia. In 2008 they moved to Sacramento, CA to live with their son Roy, his wife Traci, and their children Calvin Berry, Mark Berry, George Berry, Mari Tateyama, and Trent Tateyama. After 57 years of marriage Al died in 2012. Marian’s cognition waned and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She spent the last years of her life in a pleasant, assisted living facility in the El Dorado Hills area, where Roy and Traci had moved. She was regularly visited and cared for by Roy and Traci. Her younger son, Jeff, and his wife, Peggy Elam, visited from Nashville, TN when they could. As Marian’s health declined, she went on hospice in her assisted living facility, and passed peacefully several days after Jeff and Peggy last visited.

Marian was preceded in death by her parents, Lloyd and Valera Hord, her husband, Roy Alfred Berry Jr., and her grandson George. She is survived by her sons Dr. Roy Berry (El Dorado Hills) and Jeff Berry (Nashville), their wives Traci Berry and Dr. Peggy Elam, her grandchildren Calvin (California), Mark (Montana), Mari (Sacramento), and Trent (El Dorado Hills), her brother Charles Hord and his wife Emily Hord of Madison, MS, her niece Elisa Hord Gamble of Madison, MS, and her nephew Eddie Hord of Memphis, TN.

Online condolences and a guest registry are available at www.saultersmoorefuneralhome.com.