Iona Mathis Kirkland

Mrs. Iona Mathis Kirkland was born in Houston County, Alabama on December 19, 1926 to the late Claudia Mathis.

She departed this life on Saturday, October 24, 2015 in Marianna, Florida.

She was united in Holy Matrimony to late Willie Kirkland.            

She was preceded in death by her mother; two daughters: Hattie Kirkland and Annie Jean Fontenot; one son: Marcus McCant; one sister: Mary Roberson and a brother, Willie Frank Mathis.

She leaves to cherish her memories three sons: Albert Kirkland of Miami, Florida, Billy Kirkland and his wife Lucille of Marianna, Florida and Cullen Brown, Jr., of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; four daughters: Claudia Henry of Graceville, Florida, Rosetta Kirkland of Cottondale, Florida, Willie Mae Kirkland of Chipley, Florida and Lula Mae Brown of Long Beach, New York; one brother: Albert Holmes of Midland City,  Alabama; two sisters: Margaret Collins of Dothan, Alabama and Robbie Mae Woodens of Denver, Colorado; twenty-nine grandchildren; twenty-seven great grandchildren; several nieces, nephews, other relatives and two special friends: Bonnie Myrick and Catherine Johnson.

I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways,
Of happy times and laughing times and bright and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun;
Of happy memories that I leave when life is done.

Unknown at that hour. At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies, do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose the pale gates of sunrise?
When all things repose, do you alone
Awake to hear the sweet harps play
To Love before him on his way,
And the night wind answering in antiphon
Till night is over gone? Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
Whose way in heaven is aglow at that hour when soft lights come and go,
Soft sweet music in the air above and in the earth below.

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