Mrs Sara Allen Panetta

Sara Allen Panetta
May 4, 1936 – November 5, 2025
Sara Allen Panetta, 89, of Madison, Mississippi, passed away peacefully on November 5, 2025. Born May 4, 1936, in Carthage, she was the seventh of twelve children of Annie Jimmerson Murphy Allen and Jesse Robert Allen.
Growing up on a cotton farm in rural Mississippi, she learned the value of hard work and the joy of simple things - picking cotton alongside her brothers and sisters, swimming in the farm pond, and riding Bessie, the mule, bareback up to the fence line. Even as a young girl, she dreamed of wearing high heels, carrying a purse, and wearing lipstick - symbols of the grace and confidence she would carry all her life.
A graduate of Carthage High School, Sara married shortly after graduation and began raising a family. Widowed in her mid-twenties, she faced life with remarkable strength, raising her two young sons. She met her second husband in Hazelhurst, Mississippi and bore her third son. Ultimately, she would build a career that spanned three decades with the U.S. Postal Service. Her warmth, humor, and unwavering kindness endeared her to everyone she met.
Sara was preceded in death by her eldest son, Edward Glen Panetta. She is survived by her children Timothy Allen Panetta, Joseph Anthony Panetta; grandchildren Adam Barnett Panetta, Sara Marie Panetta Klaus, and Jessica Glyn Panetta Terry; Stephen Allen Panetta and Lindsay Benay Panetta DuSauzay; ten great-grandchildren; and siblings Faye Allen Rhinewalt Wooten, Mary Cooper Allen Rankin, and Robert Murphy Allen.
Sara will be remembered as a woman of beauty, resilience, and heart - someone who lived with quiet grace and loved deeply.
Funeral Services will be at 11:00 am at Pleasant Grove Church on Monday, November 17, 2025, with Bro. Ron Laney officiating. Interment will be in Pleasant Grove Cemetery. Wilcox Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.