Billy Lee Self

Visitation will be held 5:00-6:00pm, Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at Baldwin-Lee Funeral Home in Pearl. Memorial services will follow at 6:00pm in the funeral home chapel.

He was born Thursday, August 4, 1955 in Ackerman, Mississippi, the sixth of eight children born to the late Bennie Edward Self and Mildred Marie Addkison Self. His siblings included six sisters and one brother as follows: Jane, Bennie, Brenda, Patsy, Eddie, Pamela and Sheila.

Billy, the adventurous one, took up travel in the third grade when he left school and started hitchhiking on Highway 80 in Pearl, where he was promptly picked up by a Highway Patrolman and taken home. After his school years, Billy worked as a service station manager and operator for several years. He then enlisted in the U.S. Army, which he didn't care much for. Billy then worked in several fields including offshore, welding at Ingals Shipyard, truck driving for Wicks Lumber and construction and truck driving for Mallet Brothers, all the while searching for the American Dream.

In 1979 he married Mona Cummings in Gautier, Mississippi. They had two sons, Michael Brandon Self and Rodney Adam Self during their twenty year marriage and his son, Adam, gave Billy his two grandchildren, Gage Jordan Self, age two, and Adam Xavier Self, age six.

In recent years, Billy suffered from coronary artery disease and MDS, a form of bone cancer. He died peacefully in his sleep at Driftwood Nursing Center in Gulfport.

Until the end, Billy kept his faith that all would be okay, and we all must go when God calls.