03/20/2014
Doris Marie (Adams) Barnett, 91, passed away at Lookout Mtn Assisted Living Home in Phoenix AZ, with her daughter, Siu, at her side on March 20, 2014. Doris was born the second of two daughters of C. Pearl Adams (1895 – 1954) and Jessie Davis Adams (1895 – 1988) on November 16, 1922, in Knoxville, Iowa.
Doris graduated from Knoxville High School and Iowa State College with a degree in Home Economics Education and later earned a Masters’s Degree in Institutional Management.
Doris ‘honorably’ served her country as a Technical Instructor in the U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Washington DC during WWII.
She was married to Marine Lt. Reid Barnett also from Knoxville, IA, in August 1945. They made their home in Ames, where Doris conducted a catering business specializing in wedding cakes. They had six children: Denby, Wendel, Anthony, Timothy, and Clifford, and adopted a daughter from Hong Kong, Siu.
The couple divorced in 1969. The family moved to Phoenix AZ in 1962. Doris began a 20-year career as a Home Economics & Child Development teacher and Dept. Chair at Camelback High School. After “retiring” from teaching, Doris’ interests became more diverse-investing in real estate, working as a nanny, selling for Mary Kay Cosmetics, and traveling overseas – visiting Europe, China, and “The Holy Land”.
Her favorite hobby was ballroom dancing. She danced and competed and sewed her own costumes for fifteen years at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio.
Doris is survived by five children, nine granddaughters, three grandsons, three great-granddaughters, and four great-grandsons. 
Doris is preceded in death by her son, Clifford Paul Barnett (1957 – 1995), sister, Dixie A. Adams Snyder (1920 – 2003), and ex-spouse, Reid (2007).
Doris’ ashes will return to Knoxville Iowa and be buried at Graceland Cemetery with military honors on July 7, 2014, at 10:00 AM beside her parents.