Renee Denise Barnes

Renee Denise Ponchin Barnes, of Decatur, AL passed away on July 25, 2025. Visitation will be on Monday, July 28, 2025, from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM to at Roselawn Funeral Home. The Requiem Mass service will begin at 3:00 PM on Tuesday, July 29, at Annunciation of the Lord Catholic Church with Fr. Max Gallegos officiating. She will be laid to rest at Roselawn Cemetery.

Renee is survived by her two sons, Michel Barnes of Milwaukee, WI and Rene Barnes of Silver Spring, MD, a granddaughter, Jessica Barnes of Milwaukee, WI, daughter-in-law Julia Pananen Barnes, of Milwaukee, , six great-grandchildren in Milwaukee, two nephews in the US, and 13 nieces and nephews in France.

She was preceded in death by her husband of forty-four years, Lewis Barnes, her infant daughter, Francoise, her daughter in law, Elise Brand Barnes, her two sisters Christiane Ponchin Gillespie and Nicole Ponchin Vacher, and her brother Georges Ponchin.

Renee was born on September 2, 1927 in Hanoi, Vietnam, then called French Indochina. Her father and grandfather were artists who were part of a team that had been sent by the French government to assist in setting up an Academy of Fine Arts in Hanoi. The family returned to Marseille, France in 1932 and Renee grew up in Marseille. She lived through WWII as a teenager , including the German occupation of France & Operation Dragoon, the Allied liberation of southern France in 1944.

At the end of the war, her older sister, Christiane, got engaged to an American soldier, Austin Gillespie, who was from the Decatur area. The wedding was held at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in downtown Decatur, and Renee met her future husband, Lewis Barnes, at the wedding where he was the best man and she was the maid of honor.

The couple settled in Decatur, and after a multi-year stay for contract work for her husband in the Azores and a brief stay in New Orleans, they settled in Decatur permanently in 1958 and raised their two sons there

Renee was for many years a full-time homemaker who also tutored students in French.. She also partnered with her husband in a home-based import-export business from 1968 to 1976.

After the death of her husband in 1991, Renee spent her time volunteering in community services such as tutoring French at area schools. She also took a very active hand in shepherding the reputation of her artistic family, since her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were noted artists in her native France. Her efforts culminated in the establishment of a permanent exhibition via her donation of paintings from three generations of the Ponchin family to the Huntsville Museum of Art, and in a showing of their paintings at the French Embassy in Washington, DC. A painting by her grandfather adorns the main meeting room at the French Embassy in Washington via her generous donation.

Pallbearers will be her sons, Michel and Rene.