Emily Elizabeth McKnight

Emily was born in 1936 in Hattiesburg Mississippi, the eldest child of Wert B. Cousson and Hazel (Giles) Cousson. She graduated in 1958 from Florida State University with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Elementary Education. While pursuing her studies, she caught the eye of Robert (Cameron) McKnight because she received higher grades than he in their shared classes. Academic competition evolved quickly into a deep romantic attachment. By the time he left Florida for medical school in St. Louis, they were committed to each other. They married on October 31st, 1959 and delighted in sharing their anniversaries with trick or treaters and jack o’ lanterns until he passed away in 2015. Emily taught elementary school in the Jacksonville and St. Louis public schools and continued to teach as they started a family together and Cameron completed his medical education.

Emily was a powerful creative soul. She was a gifted teacher, printmaker, woodcarver, dollmaker and sculptor and she shared her art with others, painting into the last month of her life. She taught art classes at her kitchen table for two decades in University City and continued this practice in a large sunny space in her home in Hannibal Missouri. As a companion to her art lessons, she taught us that in our pursuit of beauty we should remember that pretty outsides are less important than “pretty” actions. Friends, family, homesick college students and young artists were welcomed warmly into the shelter of her home. She always had a pot of coffee and a space at the table for you, and her deep kindness and compassion for others meant that she collected friends, fans and “family” throughout her life. She loved to tell stories of growing up in Mendenhall Mississippi, cooking and baking on a wood-fired stove and churning butter with her grandmother when she wasn’t playing with her siblings. She was an avid reader all of her life. Usually the smartest person in the room, although modest and disarming about it, she instilled in her daughters a determination to be strong and independent career women and actively supported and celebrated their successes. She left this life peacefully in her sleep on December 15, 2022.

May her memory be a blessing to her daughters Elizabeth, Anne and Jennifer, sons-in-law Kenneth Boucher and Gerald Sur, grandchildren Elise, James, Robert and JingJing, Michael, Joseph, Natalie, Brigette, Dylan, and great granddaughter and namesake Emma, brother Kenneth Cousson, sister Annette Ruffin, nieces, nephews, cousins and all who knew her. In lieu of flowers, please consider a small gift to the Missouri Botanical Garden Shaw Nature Reserve https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plan-your-visit/family-of-attractions/shaw-nature-reserve/ways-to-give or composing a work of art, craft or a story of your own in her honor.

Memorial services for beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother Emily McKnight will be held at Second Presbyterian Church, 4501 Westminster Place, 63108 on Saturday, December 24, 2022 at ten-thirty in the morning.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.kriegshausermortuary.com for the McKnight family.