Frances Reola (McKinney) Beeley Lewis became ill and entered the Comanche County Hospital Thursday, Dec. 17, and died at 7:30 a.m. Dec. 18, 1981.She was born May 16, 1903 to Della Viola Hartshorn and Pearly Portland McKinney at Abbie, Okla., 30 miles northwest of Alva in the ranch country where her father had proved up a claim of 160 acres of land.
When she was five years of age, her parents sold the claim and purchased a home at Aline, Okla. 70 miles to the southeast where she made her home until she was a high school junior. Her family then moved to Wichita where she finished high school while completing the Teacher's Training Course her senior year. The next two years she taught the fourth grade at the Coldwater Elementary School.
At the end of the first school year on June 10, 1923, she married J. Lynn Beeley, a Coldwater community resident, and they moved to his home 10 miles southeast of Coldwater. There they raised a daughter, Ellen Maxine, and son, Ross Portland. Lynn died Oct. 3, 1946 and, as her children were married and had their own homes, she went back to teaching. During the remaining 19 years she taught at Glendale and Pleasant Ridge rural schools and the Coldwater Kindergarten Pratt rural schools, Hays rural schools and the Pleasant Valley Public Schools in Wichita.
She married Marvin G. Lewis on Dec. 25, 1949, a trooper on the Kansas Highway Patrol. He later became a lieutenant and captain. They were married at the home of her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Jay Pounds, in Coldwater.
On April 30, 1964 a son, Ross Portland Beeley, died.
In 1966 Marvin retired from the Patrol and they moved to the Beeley farm where they farmed for a few years. Nine years ago they purchased a home in Coldwater.
Mrs. Lewis was a member of the Coldwater United Methodist Church where she served as lay member to the United Methodist Conference and had other church responsibilities.
She was a charter member of the Sunnyside Farm Bureau and was a member of research and Holmes Bible Study Clubs.
Survivors include: Marvin Lewis, husband, Coldwater, and children, Mrs. Maxine Beeley Emerson Weber of Cherokee, Okla., Larry Alan Lewis, Lincoln, Nebr., Mrs. Carolyn Ruth Current, Topeka, and Mrs. Betty Elaine Wharton of Dalhart, Tex., one sister, Mrs. Wilma Ellen Swearingen, Amarillo, Texas, one brother, Milton Portland McKinney, Raytown, Mo., 13 grandchildren; Dr. Ronald Lynn Beeley, Alta Loma, Calif., Timothy Kent Emerson, Robstown, Texas, Attorney Ellen Frances Sweeney, Kansas City, Mo., Ted Ross Emerson, Nicherson, Curtis and Janet Current, Topeka, RaLynda, Traleia, Tanya and Toyia Wharton, Dalhart, Texas, Shelli, Matthew and Kerry Lewis, Lincoln, Nebr., five great grandchildren: Angela and Ross Beeley, Alta Loma, Calif., Debra and Michelle Emerson, Alva, Okla., and Travis Cal Emerson, Nickerson, many other relatives and friends.
In addition to her parents Mrs. Lewis was preceded in death by two brothers, Clifford Eugene and Homer Cecil McKinney.
John Lynn Beeley, first husband of Frances Reola McKinney.
Ross Portland Beeley, son of John Lynn and Frances Reola (McKinney) Beeley.
Thanks to Shirley Brier for finding, transcribing and contributing the above news article to this web site!
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