Toews, Frankie Reaves Kellar (1920-2010)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2010 Nov 22 p. 9

Birth date: 1920 Sep 1

text of obituary:

FRANKIE TOEWS

Frankie Kellar Toews, 90, of Lustre, Mont., died Oct. 18, 2010, in a car accident. She was born Sept. 1, 1920, to Casbie and Viola Reaves in Carterville, Mo.

She attended schools in Carterville and in North Dakota and Arkansas up to the eighth grade. She married Orville Kellar when she was 17 and moved with him to Washington. She raised two sons and worked outside the home. One of her jobs was working as an orchard field boss.

At age 28 she became a Christian. She and her husband and sons listened to a radio preacher and started attending his church. Later they became charter members of Bethany Open Bible Church.

She and her husband, Orville, were married 42 years before his death in 1982. In 1988 she met and married Rudolph Toews and moved to Lustre, where she energetically embraced living on the farm, growing a garden and raising chickens.

She will be remembered for her positive attitude, frequent laughter, vitality, love of life and intense interest in all of God’s creation. She was an avid gardener and a passionate lover of animals. She was a generous giver and sincere listener. When she lived in Tacoma she was active in the jail ministry run by her church. In Lustre, she and Rudolph helped out at Beacon Bible Camp every summer for 11 years.

Survivors include her husband of almost 22 years, Rudolph Toews; sons Orville Kellar Jr. of Ashton, S.D., and Phillip Kellar of Tacoma, Wash.; nine stepchildren, Dennis Toews of Billings, Janet Berg of Seattle, Wash., Leroy Toews of Billings, Eldon Toews of Miles City, Ellen Miller of Phoenix, Ariz., Leon Toews of Meade, Kan., John Toews of Lustre, Karen Hallock of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and Violet Vix of Sawyer, N.D.; 29 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Memorial services were held at Lustre. Burial was in Hall Cemetery in Natural Dam, Ark.