11/14/2021
Yesterday the world lost a legend, the Barnes family lost a huge piece of their heart, Cousins Bed and Breakfast lost its hospitality icon, and the Town of Beaufort lost one of its esteemed, well respected and tremendously loved businessmen. Elmo truly added spice to everyone's life, and always made time to visit on the porch, whip up an amazing meal, pour you a gin, or just share a recipe.
His visual artistry ran the gambit, encompassing architectural design, custom home and commercial construction, boat building, furniture building, acrylic painting, and pen and ink.
His culinary artistry included dozens of proprietary blended spices that rounded out a collection of 180 spices and more recipes than one could count, all under the trademark of Satan's Breath (satansbreath.com). Elmo wrote three recipe books, appeared on Country Inn Cooking with Gail Greco (shown on PBS), and won the Fiery Food Challenge in Albuquerque, New Mexico for his Elmo's Fire spice. Elmo and Martha were also highlighted in Our State Magazine.
Elmo served 12 years in the Navy; a portion of time in the fleet, the remainder in the Seabees. During his time in the Seabees, he did two tours in Antartica as a member of Operation Deep Freeze building Byrd Station, a research station established by the United States during the International Geophysical Year. He was a man of principal, integrity, loyalty and solid grit. After moving to Beaufort from Wilson, he worked as the Plant Engineer at Atlantic Veneer for 13 years.
His most treasured accomplishment was the lifelong, deep and fiery love affair he shared with his wife and muse, Martha. He often said "If the Lord made anything better than a woman, he kept it for himself". As fate would have it, he spotted Martha, his soul mate, when she was a mere 13 years of age. Their 64 year marriage resulted in three uniquely different children; Dean, Bari and Todd, and welcomed with much love two additional children, Sharon and Hunter.
Elmo Deans Barnes, Jr, was born in Wilson County and was the son of Aletha Eloise Boyette and Elmo Deans Barnes. Elmo is survived by his wife, Martha Totty Barnes, son Elmo Deans Barnes ("Dean"), wife Anna Butner Barnes, granddaughter Martha Caroline Wilson and husband Shea Wilson, daughter Bari Lynn Barnes and husband Michael Nardozzi, son Todd Christian Barnes and fiance Julie Hird Cox, and granddaughter Kaitlin Skylar Barnes, daughter Sharon Giffin and husband Daniel Giffin, and son Hunter Coleman Totty and wife Lynn Totty.
