Lucille Holton

Lucille Smith Holton, 86, a lifelong resident of Independence, Mo., passed away Monday, September 3, 2007 at her home in the Fountains at Greenbriar. Mass of Christian Burial will be 10:30 a.m. Thursday, September 6, 2007 at Nativity of Mary Catholic Church. Visitation will be 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 5, 2007 at Speaks Suburban Chapel. The rosary will be recited at 7:30 p.m.
Lucille greeted life as a blessing and lived it as a prayer.
She was born Mildred Lucille Minahan on March 10, 1921, in a small, family farmhouse on Noland Road just a few miles south of U.S. Highway 40. The only child of Daniel F. and Katherine (Strick) Minahan, she was just three months old when her father, an Irish-American veteran of World War I, fell ill and died. Four years later, her mother was remarried �" to Jack A. Smith, a woodworker, millwright and a longtime employee of the Butler Manufacturing Co. in Kansas City. They lived for decades in a historic home at 902 N. Liberty, which Lucille’s highly skilled stepfather renovated and expanded over time under the loving and exacting eye of her German-American mother.
Lucille preferred to be called by her middle name. Much of her youth revolved around the St. Mary’s Catholic Church and school just three blocks from her home. After graduating from the high school there, she attended college at St. Teresa’s college for women in Kansas City and the University of Missouri at Columbia. She was an accomplished pianist. In those days, the rails of the streetcar linking Independence to Kansas City became Lucille’s path to the wider world of college, dating, tennis, shopping and movie-going in the big city. She was in her early twenties when she met and was courted by Edward B. Holton, a Tonganoxie, Kan., farm boy and recent graduate of Rockhurst College. He was dazzled by the dark-eyed Independence beauty.
Their love endured a separation of more than three years brought on by Edward’s service overseas in the U.S. Army during World War II. Lucille did her part for the war effort by working as a secretary at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. Meanwhile, they exchanged enough love letters to fill two small suitcases that Lucille kept quietly stored away in her attic for decades to come. When Edward returned on a train from the east several months after the end of the war in 1945, he was expecting to be greeted by members of his family at the Union Station in Kansas City. But Lucille beat them all to the punch, hopping aboard the train at the Independence stop and threading her way through the crowded cars before finally spotting her future husband. There he was, still in uniform, sharing stories and jokes with other passengers. She tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, and there she was. He took her into his arms and kissed her as the train rolled on toward the city.
They were married Feb. 16, 1946 at the St. Mary’s church. Lucille supported Edward while he was a student at the St. Louis University Medical School, and soon they started a family with the first of five children. In 1951, they returned to Independence where she helped her husband establish the medical practice that was to support their family for nearly four decades. In 1956, they moved from their home on Bryson Street to the new, ranch-style house on south Westport Road where they would live for the next 48 years. In this home, Lucille would take pride in her garden and furnishings and make the evening dinner table a center of family activity and conversation each and every night. Lucille was active for years in the Junior Service League of Independence and a member of the Altar Society at the Nativity of Mary Catholic Church. She dedicated her life to her deep religious faith, and made it her mission to instill that faith in her children. She was a passionate Democrat, an avid newspaper reader and devoted fan of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals, even in their most desperate days.
But what will live on in the memories of her children and others who loved Lucille cannot be reduced to a timeline or a list of interests and accomplishments. Her generosity, good humor, compassion and concern for others were the qualities that defined her life. And they found expression in her smile, her twinkling eyes and the murmur of her laughter. All of these qualities endured even as she took on the burden of caring for Edward after he was stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, and even after she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in September 2002. After she moved into the Fountains in 2004, the same qualities won Lucille many new friends and endeared her to her loving caregivers. She remained mentally sharp, in good humor and high spirits until the week before her death.
Lucille was surrounded by all of her children in her final hours. Her family would like to express its deepest gratitude to the caregivers of Home Instead and the hospice nurses of Odyssey health care, who brought her comfort and peace.
Lucille was preceded in death by her husband, Edward, who died in October 2006. She is survived by five children; Kathleen Kaplan and husband Richard of Las Vegas, Nev.; Timothy P. Holton and wife Julie of St. Ann, Mo.; Brian E. Holton and wife Sue of Paoli, Pa.; son Sean M. Holton of Orlando, Fla.; and daughter Ellen P. Holton and her partner Stacy Atchison of Los Angeles. Her legacy includes three grandchildren, Timothy, Julia and Elizabeth Holton of Paoli, Pa.
Contributions may be made to Odyssey Hospice Foundation, 717 N. Harwood, Dallas, TX, 75201; or to the Nativity of Mary Church Building Fund, 10017 E. 36th Terrace, Independence, MO, 64052.