ST. JOSEPH, La.  — Funeral services for Mary Emma Tindell Kifer, age 77, were  at 11 a.m. today at St. Joseph Baptist Church in St. Joseph with Larry Foster, pastor, officiating. Burial followed at Legion Cemetery in Newellton.

Mrs. Kifer was born in Newellton on Sept. 9, 1931, to Albert and Mary Elizabeth Tindell. She graduated from Newellton High in 1951 and married Cecil Lee Kifer Sr. on Nov. 3 of that year.

Mrs. Kifer was a homemaker and resident of St. Joseph from 1951 to 2002 when she moved to Baton Rouge. She died Feb. 26, 2009, in the Butterfly Wing of the inpatient hospice unit of the Hospice of Baton Rouge.

Mrs. Kifer was preceded in death by her husband, Cecil Lee Kifer Sr.; parents, Albert and Mary Stone Tindell; a brother, Morris “Hoss” Tindell; father and mother-in-law, Louis Allen and Effie Kifer; brothers and sisters-in-law, Nathan and Ruth Kifer, Ollie Kifer Brown and Fred Brown, and Franklin “Frank” Kifer.

Mrs. Kifer is survived by one daughter, Elizabeth Routon and husband, Robert Glen Routon, of Baton Rouge; two sons, Cecil Lee Kifer Jr. and his wife, Connie, and Brian Wade Kifer and his wife, Pam, all of St. Joseph; five grandchildren, Crawford Wade Kifer and his wife, Brandy, of Vidalia, La., Tucker Lee Kifer of Ruston, La., Kelsey Lynn Kifer of Clinton, Miss., Nikki Peeples Loboda and her husband, Steve, of Ringgold, Ga., and Brett Peeples of Tallulah; three great-grandchildren, Nicholas, Lucas and Thomas Lobada of Ringgold. Siblings Margie Tindell Redditt and her husband, John of Hendersonville, Tenn., Mardell “Sissy” Tindell Osborne and her husband, Warren, of Naples, Fla., and Albert “Buddy” Tindell Jr. and his wife, Lady, of St. Joseph; and nieces, nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews.

Pallbearers will be Crawford Wade Kifer, Tucker Lee Kifer, Danny Kifer, Nathan Odell “Sonny” Kifer Jr., Allen Brown, David Redditt, John B. “Terry” Redditt and Rickey Lowery. Honorary pallbearers will be Whitfield Jones and Will Johnson.

Memorial may be made to Hospice of Baton Rouge.