Barbara Keen

Funeral services celebrating the life of Barbara Keen, 84, of West Monroe, LA will be held at 3:30 P.M., Sunday, July 9, 2017 at White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ in West Monroe, LA with Mike Kellett officiating. Interment will follow in Roselawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Calhoun, LA under the direction of Mulhearn Funeral Home, West Monroe, LA.

Barbara was born January 4, 1933, and passed away July 7, 2017. She was born to Bill and Rosslee Matheson in her grandmother’s house on a farm near Hollis, Oklahoma. Her father grew cotton, and she spent many days picking cotton alongside him. During the Depression, her family moved to California to look for work but eventually returned to the farm in Hollis. She graduated from Arnett High School in 1951. After graduation, she moved to Shreveport, where she obtained her certification in cosmetology and ran a beauty shop in her home. She also worked as a secretary at Lion Oil Company and was a notary public. She worked at the Ouachita Parish Public Library for ten years. After she retired from the library she began painting, which she loved.

She was always a student of the Bible, and she developed a Bible correspondence course which she offered to people that she came in contact with daily. She also spoke at different churches in Louisiana and Oklahoma for Ladies Events and wrote several articles for Christian Family Magazine. She loved to write, and she wrote two historical fiction books which were based on the lives of her ancestors.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Charles; her parents, Bill and Rosslee Matheson; her brother, Bill Matheson; and her son, Bruce Keen.

She is survived by daughters, Susan Kellett and her husband Mike of West Monroe, LA, Kathy Wild and her husband Chuck of Benton, LA, Dianne Mitchell and her husband Rusty of Texarkana, AR; her daughter-in-law, Rene Keen of West Monroe; grandchildren, Natalie Brouillette and her husband Chuck of Dallas, TX, Kristin Kellett of Tulsa, OK, Josh Kellett and his wife Beth of Searcy, AR, Christopher Azlin and his wife Michelle of Chipley, FL, Nikki Azlin of Benton, LA, Damian Jones and his wife Rachelle of Vancouver, WA, Brandon Jones of West Monroe, LA, Kaitlin Malone and her husband Kyle of West Monroe, LA; great grandchildren, Summer Azlin, Gage Graves, Addison Graves, Chandler Malone, Haiden Jones, Gabrielle Jones and Olivia Keen; sisters, Kara Matheson of Del Norte, CO and Judy Trammell and her husband R.J. of Church Point, LA.

Visitation will be held from 2:30 P.M. until service time on Sunday at the church.