Patsy Ruth Fortenberry Wooten

Patsy Ruth Fortenberry Wooten passed away quietly on April 2, 2023, at the age of 90 just over a month before her 91st birthday. She was a woman of deep faith and commitment and was a member of the First Baptist Church of Ocean Springs. A native of Mississippi, she attended Columbia High School and worked on the family farm and in various family businesses before meeting and marrying her husband who was in the Armed Services. His service brought them to the coast in the 1950s and she remained an Ocean Springs resident for the remainder of her life.

She worked in various local businesses as her children grew up and was active with her church family. She loved her home on the coast and in her later years spent many hours on her front porch swing as the unofficial “mayor” on the hill.

She was predeceased by her husband, John D. Wooten; and her siblings, Bobby D. Fortenberry and BJ White. She is survived by her children, Rebecca Fail, Susan Wooten, Keith Wooten; her grandchildren, Lydia Brown and Kate Fail; and her great grandchildren, Olivia Katherine and Charlotte Ruth Brown.

A celebration of life memorial will be held on June 25th, at 2PM at the Bradford O’Keefe Funeral Home in Ocean Springs, MS. Please join the family in recognition of this long-lived life. Patsy unselfishly made an anatomical donation of her body in hopes of furthering medical science studies. In lieu of flowers, the family requests any remembrances be in the form of donations to one’s favorite charity.

“You can shed tears that she is gone.

Or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back.

Or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left.

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her.

Or you can be full of the love that you shared.” (David Harkins)