Mary Elizabeth Miles

Mary was born August 3, 1938, in Scott County, Mississippi, the youngest of ten children born to the late Dennis H. Daigre and Lula Ora Gardner Daigre. She was a graduate of Forest High School where she played on one of their earliest female basketball teams.

Mary enjoyed a career of more than 30 years with the Mississippi Highway Patrol/Dept. of Public Safety. For most of those years, she served as an administrative assistant in the Protective Services Division of the governor’s office. Her career spanned the tenures of three Mississippi governors, and she was privileged to meet and serve with many high ranking local, state, and federal officials, including President George Bush, Sr. and U.S. Senator Bob Dole. She especially enjoyed teaching etiquette classes to each new class of MHP cadets to prepare them for traveling with the governor and proper decorum in different settings. Although retired, she was recruited by Gov. Haley Barbour following Hurricane Katrina to assist the governor’s office with the thousands of calls received and to comfort and direct families in the midst of disaster and loss. In the aftermath of Katrina, Mary elected to continue serving the governor’s office before finally settling into life as a retiree. After retirement, she enjoyed helping take care of her granddaughter, shopping with her sisters, and traveling with her family.

Mary was a long-time member of McLaurin Heights Baptist Church where she served as a Sunday School teacher and volunteered for numerous committees and church councils. She often spoke fondly of working with the youth and loved when they would venture across the street to her house looking for something good to eat.

She also coordinated and directed over two hundred weddings. She took immense pride in assisting a young couple fulfill their dream wedding. She would often remark how blessed she was to be a part of a couple’s special day as they begin their lives together.

She was a long-time member of the Order of the Eastern Star - Pearl Chapter No. 120.

In her free time Mary enjoyed gardening and cooking. She was truly blessed with a green thumb and delighted in spending time in her yard. She was awarded Yard of the Month several times. In her kitchen, she was happy cooking and preparing meals for her family and friends. Her famous teacakes were the favorite of many.

In addition to her parents, Mary was preceded in death by the “love of her life,” her beloved husband, Robert “Bob” Miles, Sr, and eight of nine siblings.

She is survived by sons Michael Jeffery Miles (Angie) and Robert “Robbie” Miles, Jr; sister and best friend Joan Knipfer; grandchildren, Jason Corban (Maggie), Adam Miles (Nikki), and Ashley Miles (fiancé Tyler Moore); great-grandchildren, Colt Miles, and Hendrix Corban; and numerous nieces and nephews whom she dearly loved.

Visitation will be held from 11:00 am until 2:00 pm, Thursday, August 25, 2022, at Baldwin-Lee Funeral Home in Pearl. Funeral services will follow at 2:00 pm in the funeral home chapel. She will be laid to rest in a private interment at Floral Hills Memory Gardens.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to McLaurin Heights Baptist Church.