Barbara Joyce Denson, daughter of the late Jim “Buster” Mills and Gladys North Mills, was born on July 23, 1940, in Parma, Missouri, and departed this life on June 16, 2023, at Southeast Health in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, at the age of 82 years.

Mrs. Denson was a former activity director for Malden Nursing Center in Malden, Missouri and Mark Twain Nursing Center in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. She was a member of the Church of Christ in Puxico, Missouri, and a resident of Wappapello, Missouri. She loved to go to Louisiana fishing with her husband, and she loved spending time with her family and grandchildren.

On August 18, 1956, in Tupelo, Mississippi, she was united in marriage to Jimmy Dale Denson. Mr. Denson survives of their home in Wappapello, Missouri.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by two sons, Dale Wayne Denson and wife Belinda of Wappapello, Missouri, and Jimmy Joe Denson and wife Tracie of Poplar Bluff, Missouri; by her daughter, Shelley Lynn Hollis and husband Charlie of Bloomfield, Missouri; by her brother, Carl Douglas Mills of Tiptonville, Tennessee; by her sister, Nelda Lou Whitaker of Pontiac, Michigan; and by numerous grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren and numerous great-great grandchildren.

Other than by her parents, she was preceded in death by her son, Brian Mills Denson; by her daughter-in-law, Amelia Denson; by two brothers, Jimmy Joe Mills, and Ronald Wayne Mills.

Visitation will be held at Mathis Funeral Home in Dexter on Thursday, June 22, 2023, from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. Funeral services will then be conducted in the Mathis Funeral Home Chapel on Thursday, June 22, 2023, at 3:00 p.m. Interment will follow in the Little Brushy Cemetery in Wappapello, Missouri.

Mathis Funeral Home in Dexter is assisting with arrangements.