Services for Mary Ruth Prince, formerly of Vicksburg, will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Paul M.B. Church in Bovina. Burial will follow at Green Hill Cemetery in Edwards. Visitation will be from 2 until 5 p.m. Friday at Dillon-Chisley Funeral Home and Saturday at the church from 10 a.m. until the service.

Mrs. Prince died Monday, June 22, 2009, at her home in Itta Bena. She was 81.

She served as church secretary and a choir member at St. Paul M.B. Church.

She attended Southern Christian Institute and graduated from Tougaloo College with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She received two master’s degrees from Central Michigan University.

Mrs. Prince was a former teacher and had taught at Rosa A. Temple and Bowmar elementaries and Stone Street Elementary in Greenwood. She retired as librarian from Mississippi Valley State University, where she founded the Modeling Squad for etiquette instruction.

She was a member of the Southern Christian Institute Alumni Organization and the LINKS Inc., serving as archivist for the Vicksburg chapter.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Sarah Henderson Brown and James A. Brown; and her husbands, James Brown and James Richard Prince.

Survivors include one daughter, Eldred René Patterson of Itta Bena; one brother, James A. Brown Jr. of Vicksburg; three sisters, Annie Marie Brown and Tommie Virginia Allen of Vicksburg and Rosie Lee Wilson of Columbia, S.C.; four grandsons; and nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends, including Wardell Strong, James Stirgus Jr., Thelma Rush and Larry Allen, all of Vicksburg, M.C. Wilson of South Carolina and Sarah Ann Brown of Chicago.