Melba Waites Parker, a longtime school teacher and community leader at Eagle Lake, died Saturday, July 16, 2011, in Cleveland. She was 90.

Mrs. Parker was born at Lake Como and, after graduating from Mississippi State College for Women with a degree in home economics and a minor in science, she moved to Warren County where she taught at Oak Ridge High School.

She was a former employee of Mississippi Power & Light Co. and later, before moving to Eagle Lake, was employed by Wallace Johnston Distribution Company in Memphis as a sales promotion and advertising representative in the five-state area of Memphis.

She had been a resident of Eagle Lake since Jan. 1, 1950, when she and her husband, F.G. Parker, moved there to one of the most historic pieces of land in Warren County. Their house, which had been built in 1816, survived the historic floods of 1927 and 1973, but flooded in 2011.

Mrs. Parker taught at Carr Central and Warren Central and, in the mid-1960s, ran the one-teacher, eight-grade school on Australia Island, one of the last one-teacher schools in the area.

When she retired in the 1970s, and the school closed, she said, “I always wanted to teach in a school where all you did was teach — not be a record keeper or a clerk or a referee.”

Active in Eagle Lake community service, Mrs. Parker and her friend Dorothy Butts both served as president of the Eagle Lake Club where many decisions were made concerning the Eagle Lake community during their presidencies. Mrs. Parker was one of the organizers of the Eagle Lake United Methodist Church. Active in the Home Demonstration Club, she was an avid flower and vegetable gardener.

She was a witness to a lot of changes at Eagle Lake and helped bring about many of them. Her philosophy included the way she lived: “I try to leave everybody else alone and tend to my own business and hope they do, too.”

She was preceded in death by her parents, Luther B. Waites and Ella Rogers Waites; her husband, Fleming Green “F.G.” Parker; and two brothers, L.B. Waites Jr. and Kearney Waites.

She is survived by her son, Lou Waites Parker of Eagle Lake; and two grandchildren, Luke D. Parker and Lindsay Parker, both of Eagle Lake.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Riles Funeral Home with the Rev. Barbara Hite, pastor of Eagle Lake United Methodist Church, officiating. Burial will be at Cedar Hill Cemetery. Visitation will be from 9 a.m. Tuesday until the hour of the service.

Pallbearers will be David Leon, Jimmy Creekmore, Raiford Hancock, Bill Parker, Ed Brunini and Mike Poole.

Honorary pallbearers will be Forrest Hollins, Cody Parker, Jeff Parker, Richard Dent, Thad Cochran, Gordon Cotton, Charles Nelson, Bill Tomlinson and members of the Belle Island Hunting Club.

Memorials may be made to the Eagle Lake United Methodist Church, c/o Laura Leon, 500 Eagle Lake Shore Road No. 5, Vicksburg, MS 39183.