Countee Elmore, 59, died Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009, at home. Visitation will be Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009, from 4 until 6 p.m. at W.H. Jefferson Funeral Home, Vicksburg. Funeral services are at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009, at Ratliff Chapel M.B. Church, Highway 22 in Edwards. Peoples Funeral Home, 601-969-3040 of Jackson, is in charge of the arrangements.

Countee loved to fish, tinker with watches and gardening. He collected all types of lights, caps and T-shirts.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Callie Elmore-Rivers and Willie Hall Sr.; three brothers, Lawrence Elmore, Issac Elmore and Willie Hall Jr.; Joe Hall; two sisters, Katie Harris and Mary Alice Ross; and a special uncle, Henry Gaddis Sr.

Countee was reared by his aunt, Mary Gaddis, from birth. He attended the Mississisppi School for the Deaf.

Survivors include members of his family he was reared with: Andrea Gaddis, Henry Gaddis Jr., Zolton Perry and Deborah Elmore; 10 brothers, Johnny Rivers Jr. of El Paso, Texas, Tommy Rivers of Fort Worth, Texas, Nathaniel Hall and Eugene Hall of Chicago, Willie Joe Hall, James Earl Wilson, Leroy Hall, John Hall and Johnny Lee Hall, all of Waynesboro, and Johnny Wayne Hall of Macon, Ga.; seven sisters, Panola Rivers of Fort Worth, Clara Reynolds, Bertha Anderson and Fannie Dorsey, all of Vicksburg, and Stephanie Daniels, Colleen Wilson and Mary Alice Hall, all of Waynesboro; his stepmother, Flossie Hall of Waynesboro; special cousins, Taylor Gaddis of Vicksburg and Jasmine Buckhannon of Tallahassee, Fla.; and a special aunt, Elizabeth Elmore-Lucas of Pittsburgh, Calif.

Active pallbearers will be his brothers, nephews and cousins.

Honorary pallbearers will be Otho Jones, Haskell Brooks, Arthur Miller, Raymond Lewis and John Buckhannon.