Lillian Whitley, a 106-year-old resident of Trenton, died at her home on Thursday evening, Jan. 27, 2005.
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Lillian Whitley, a 106-year-old resident of Trenton, died at her home on Thursday evening, Jan. 27, 2005.
Funeral services will be held 1 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 at the Dockery Chapel United Methodist Church, southwest of Trenton. Internment will follow at the Gilman City Masonic Cemetery. Funeral services are under the direction of Whitaker-Eads Funeral Home.
Lillian Gusewelle Whitley was born Dec. 11, 1898 near Gilman City, the eldest daughter of farmers James Edward and Margaret Gusewelle. She married Ralph Whitley on Dec. 19, 1919 and set up housekeeping in Jamesport, where Ralph operated a garage. After the market crash of 1929, the Whitleys moved to Trenton, eventually becoming farmers and establishing Whitley Popcorn Company around 1939. Mrs. Whitley worked long hours alongside her husband in all kinds of conditions on the farm and at the popcorn plant.
Their marriage was blessed with five children, James, Mary Jean, Robert, Carrol and John. James Whitley and his wife, Joan, live in Columbia. Mary Jean and John Hawkins and John and Bev Whitley are residents of Trenton. Robert’s wife, Peggy Whitley, and Carrol and Freddie Key are residents of rural Grundy County. “Can?t is not in our vocabulary,” Mrs. Whitley often told her children.
Lillian is survived by 10 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and 12 great-great-grandchildren. She was a great, great grandmother and also a great, great mother, wife and person. Mrs. Whitley was preceded in death by her parents; her husband; her only sister, Leah Ward; and a son, Robert.
Lillian witnessed amazing changes in her 106 years on this earth. She voted in the very first presidential election in which women were allowed to vote and in each subsequent election – all 21 of them. She saw America advance from the horse and buggy era to the jet age. She gave up a teaching job in 1919 because married women were not allowed to teach, yet she took college classes well into her 80s. Mrs. Whitley was interested in politics and environmental issues and was one of the founding members of the Green Hills Citizens for a Clean Environment. Lillian was known in her 90s to write one letter to the editor under the name of Whitley and another under the name of Gusewelle. She loved history and lived through a goodly chunk of it.
In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested for Dockery Chapel United Methodist Church, North Central Missouri College and Wright Memorial Hospice. Lillian Whitley will be missed by all who knew and loved her.
(Paid Obituary)