Former teacher Emma Lillian (Ellis) Desilet, 86, died Monday, June 13, 2011, at Mount Joseph Senior Village in Concordia. She was born Dec. 17, 1924, in Dardanelle , Ark. , the daughter of Jeff and Pearl (Miks) Ellis. She graduated from Dardanelle High School in 1941 and from the Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway (now the University of Central Arkansas ) in 1945 with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and chemistry. She married Buford Marcel Desilet in Dardanelle in 1945 and the couple moved to Concordia, where she lived for the rest of her life. With the severe shortage of teachers in the early 1950s, she started teaching first in country schools and then, after consolidation in the 1960s, at Notre Dame High School and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Grade School. After the closing of the Catholic schools, she taught at the Concordia Middle School , retiring after 32 years. She was a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, the Catholic Daughters and the American Legion Auxiliary. She moved to Mount Joseph after suffering a stroke about eight years ago.

Survivors include two daughters, Cynthia and Steve Haynes, Oberlin, and Marcella Marie and Rick Cairns, Concordia; five grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; a great-granddaughter; seven step-great-grandchildren; and a brother, Jeff Ellis Jr., Newport , Ark. She was preceded in death by her parents; husband; a step-grandson, Russell Cairns; and two sisters, Madelyn Curtis and Adele Crocker.

Mass of the Christian burial will be held at 10 AM Monday, June 20, 2011 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Concordia, with Rev. Larry Letourneau officiating. Interment will be in the St. Concordia Cemetery, Concordia. Visitation will be held from 12 – 8 PM Sunday, June 19, 2011 with a rosary at 5 Pm and a vigil service at 6:30 PM at Chaput-Buoy Funeral Home, Concordia. Memorials may be left to the church, the cemetery fund or Meadowlark Hospice with the funeral home in charge.