Esther Alice Fletcher Talley

From the Short Stories of the descendants of John W. and Atha Jane Reeves family reunion, on 2 May 1993, at the West Side Baptist Church, Wichita, Kansas.

My eighty year story began in Wichita and will probably end in Wichita.  I am the middle daughter of Madge Reeves and Ben Fletcher.  Forty-four years of my life were spent in the Reeves addition on North Fern Street where the J.W. and Atha Jane Reeves' shanty (1897) and subsequent house were built at 426 N. Fern.  Quite a saga, the Fern Street Story!

On my birth date 6 May 1913, I was enrolled in the West Side Baptist cradle roll.

When I was nine we moved to Oklahoma to live in a log house for two years.  Don, Eunice, Gaynell and I were baptized in our concrete stock tank.  Interesting!

I attended Martinson, Allison, North High and Wichita University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in education with a major in public school music.  I was a member of Mu Phi, National Honorary Music Sorority and Kappa Delta Pi, National Honorary Education Fraternity.

Our teacher-farmer partnership (Esther Fletcher - Manley Talley) was formed August 21, 1938.  During our forty-five years of marriage, I taught thirty years, the last twenty-one in Wichita.  For nineteen years we farmed in Pratt, Meade, and Seward Counties.  Our children feel that it was a privilege to have been reared on the farm.

In 1957, we returned to Wichita and West Side Baptist Church where I directed the choir for five years and where my membership remains.

Manley died 27 December 1983.  He was a good farmer, husband and father.

Avocations of our children, Alice, M.J. Jr., and Marilyn, followed the Reeves musical bent.  Alice enjoys violin and French horn; M.J., French horn; Marilyn, piano and flute; and each is a vocalist.

Esther Fletcher Talley, 2 May 1993.