ROBERTS, Frances Edna

ROBERTS, HAYS, BUTCHER, ALFANO, BRYAN, WANKER, ECKMAN

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 5/24/2008 at 13:07:08

"The Fairfield Ledger", Wednesday, May 21, 2008, Page 8

ROBERTS, Frances Edna -- Frances Edna ROBERTS, 99, of Long Beach, Calif., formerly of Fairfield, died Wednesday, May 14, 2008, at Bixby Knolls Towers.

A service will be at 11 a.m. June 21 at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Long Beach.

Memorials donations may be made to Memorial Hospice Program Foundation, 695 E. 27th St., Signal Hill, CA 90755, or to Jubilee Partners, PO Box 68, Comer, GA 30629.

Mrs. ROBERTS was born June 22, 1908, the daughter of George and Grace HAYS-BUTCHER on a farm in Trego County, Kan. She married Earl ROBERTS April 3, 1935. He died in 1966.

Mrs. ROBERTS was born in a sod house, built by her father on land he had homesteaded near Bosna, Kan., in the 1880s. She drove her younger sisters and brother by horse and buggy to a one-room school and graduated at age 12. She then attended Trego County High School in WaKeeney, Kan., graduating at age 16. She left home and continued her education at Kansas Wesleyan University at Salina College for two years and was trained by Western Union as a speech therapist and sent to Wichita, Kan., to train their telephone operators.

After their marriage, she and her husband moved to Fairfield. When her husband retired in 1963, they moved to Long Beach, Calif. After her husband's death, Mrs. ROBERTS worked as church secretary at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church and Geneva Presbyterian Church, both in Long Beach. At age 75, she retired to live part-time in New York City where she stayed for the next 20 years, returning to California in time for Christmas. She had been a resident of Bixby Knolls Towers for more than a year.

In Fairfield, Mrs. ROBERTS was a community volunteer. She organized a child and youth study department in the Women's Club, organized the county for UNICEF, became the first woman elder elected by the Presbyterian Church and directed many style shows. She enjoyed acting and was a charter member of the Little Theater of Fairfield. She volunteered at the Long Beach Playhouse and acted and wrote plays with the Covenant Players of Reseda, Calif. She went on to write many monologues and short plays, performing in many churches in southern California.

Survivors include three daughters, Carole Glee HAYS of Long Beach, Calif., Karla ALFANO of Corona, N.Y., and Vernanne BRYAN of Los Angeles, and five grandchildren.

In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by one brother, Carl BUTCHER, and two sisters, Pearl WANKER of WaKeeney, Kan., and Lillie ECKMAN of Des Moines.

Copied with permission from The Fairfield Ledger, Inc.

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I am not related to the person(s) mentioned.