[List] Obituary: Bessie June Certain

[Cecil Stokes]

    Obituary: Bessie June Certain


    June 29, 1931 - September 30, 2021

Bessie June Certain, 90, of 4005 Pine Ave., Huntsville, died Thursday, 
Sept. 30, at her home.

She is survived by her daughters, Geni Certain and Teri Certain 
Strickland; sons-in-law, Larry Wood, Scott Strickland, and Allen Paseur; 
daughter-in-law, Avis Marsh Certain; grandchildren, Andrea Paseur, 
Dustin Paseur and his wife Danielle, Johanna Wood, Nia Hunter Witt and 
her husband Lee, and Ian Hunter; and great-grandsons, Dalton Paseur, 
Dillon Paseur, Warren Paseur and John Allen Paseur.

She was preceded in death by her first husband, Philip Reeves Certain; 
son, Philip Anthony Certain; daughters, Andrea Lynn Certain and Deborah 
Rosemary Certain Paseur; grandsons, James Paul Philip Certain and John 
Marsh Certain; and by her second husband, Dewey C. Moss.

Mrs. Certain was a staunch advocate of equal rights for women and took 
pride in her role in breaking through glass ceilings. She rose through 
the civilian employee ranks at Redstone Arsenal from a GS-3 clerk typist 
to become the first female physical security specialist on post and then 
the U.S. Army’s first female computer security specialist. She retired 
in 1997 as a GS-13.

Born in a Huntsville cotton mill village during the depths of the Great 
Depression, she knew poverty as a child and developed a resourcefulness 
that endured throughout her life and which she taught to all her 
children. She loved learning and considered a day successful if it 
taught her one new thing. After she retired from Civil Service, she 
missed the intellectual challenge as well as the professional 
interactions of her job, but she always had a project to occupy her mind 
and her hands. These included working as a secretary in her grandson’s 
legal office and a stint as a Visiting Angel, in which she cared for 
people who needed aid in their homes.

As a widow in her 60s, she discovered a love of line dancing and a 
talent for wire wrapping gemstones, thanks to the influence of her 
second husband, Huntsville rockhound Dewey Moss. Over the next 20 years, 
she developed her artistic expression in jewelry design and taught wire 
wrapping to a number of students. Anyone who admired a piece of her 
jewelry usually received it as a gift on the spot. In her last years, 
she sewed, she read, she created elaborate flower arrangements, and she 
played word games to keep her mind sharp. Throughout her adult life, she 
welcomed visitors to her home, and she made sure no one ever left hungry.

She will be interred Sunday next to her beloved Philip and Andrea Lynn 
in a private ceremony at Maple Hill Cemetery. Although she loved 
flowers, her greatest calling was helping people in need. Thus, in lieu 
of flowers, Mrs. Certain’s family invites gifts in her memory to the 
food pantry at Grateful Life Community Church in Huntsville, New Futures 
homeless shelter in Huntsville, Rose of Sharon soup kitchen in 
Huntsville, Christmas Charities Year Round in Huntsville, or to your 
local homeless shelter.

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Bessie June Certain worked at the HD in 1960, was in the HD phonebook 
that year, and was in a carpool with Faye Jones.


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