The funeral services for Mrs. Johnnie Mae Poole Roark will be Tuesday, November 30, 2021 at 11 a.m. at Aimoch Baptist Church. Officiating will be Brother Kelly Clark and Brother Bobby McGuire. Burial will follow in the Aimoch Cemetry under the direction of Hixson Brothers Funeral Home of Jena.

The family requests that visitation be observed on Monday, November 29, 2021 at 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. at Hixson Brothers Funeral Home in Jena.

Mrs. Johnnie Mae Poole Roark was called home to be with her Lord and Savior on Friday, November 26, 2021. Her passing was unexpected and likely the result of a heart attack.

She was born on March 31, 1930 in LaSalle Parish to the union of Oliver Harris Poole and Ethel Watson Poole, who also had her older sister, Cleo Poole Jones; and her younger sister, Voncille Poole Brooks Chevallier.

She graduated from Jena High School in 1947 and married Ohmar Roark, soon thereafter. They had two children, first a son, Ken Roark; and five years later, a daughter, Pam Roark Windham.

Anyone who talked to her, for even a few minutes, knew two things that shaped her profoundly and guided her life; one was the first place of her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the other was the absence of her mother in her life, from about age 4. Although a maternal uncle offered to pay her way through college, she declined, and chose to instead be the kind of mother that she never had.

In her role of homemaker, she cooked and baked, often making teacakes and heart shaped sugar cookies, fresh from the oven for when her kids got home from school. She learned how to sew and made most of her daughters school dresses. She and her son painted some part of the house every summer; whether it was exterior window frames or interior rooms. She waxed hard wood floors on her knees with Johnson and Johnson, and polished them until they shined a new penny.

She loved a clean home and he loved her family, but most of all, she loved her Lord. She carried her children alone to church and kept praying for her husband to become a Christian. He supported her efforts and welcomed pastors and evangelists for Sunday dinner, usually every other week. He even sent his tithe, although he was not yet a church-goer. Finally, God answered her faithful prayers and she saw her husband accept Christ. He grew in his faith and became a Deacon, before he passed away in 2011.

After her son was in college, and her daughter was in high school, she began working outside the home. Many in LaSalle Parish remember her as a middle school cafeteria worker, and still thanked her for giving them the particular roll or food serving they wanted; it was her joy to do so.

She loved and grew flowers, especially roses. She worked hard alongside her husband, growing and canning vegetables. She also loved the Ozark Mountains, where her and Ohmar traveled to see the autumn foliage and holiday lights.

Of the many jobs she did inside and outside of the home, the people she met, and the life battles she fought, including three bouts with cancer, she always gave praise to the Lord first.

She was preceded in death by her parents; and her husband, Ohmar.