Lewis Elder

My paternal grandparents, Roy and Helen Elder, had twelve children. The 11th child was Lewis. He was less than 2 years older than my Daddy. He, like Daddy, had faced life at a very young age without either of his parents. Later, he married Jeanette Askey. Together, they gave life to three sons, Van, Jerry and Royce Elder and one daughter, Linda. All three sons were taken from them in two seperate awful car accidents. Today, their daughter and seven grandchildren remain. He was also struck down from cancer which has proven to be a horrible inheritance in Daddy's family. Five of the six sons died from cancer.

For most of Lewis' adult life, he farmed and lived around the Richfield, Kansas area. He touched the lives of so many people around him. A short time ago, the people of Richfield honored him with a memorial at the ballfield there in town which is directly east of his home there. Yesterday, we went to Richfield between the time that we left church at Big Bow and went to Uncle LaVere and Aunt Yvonne's house in Johnson. The whole purpose was to see the memorial. To say that it was an emotional time for us, is a definite understatement. We took pictures of the monument constructed out of a large piece of limestone that is laden with fossils. I am going to try to figure out how to place it in my blog. If you are interested in me emailing it to you, please leave comments after this post or send me an email at slblaus@gmail.com . I will only be too happy to pass it one!

VLE-B