Beulah Owsley

Beulah Ruth (Stoufer) Owsley died July 9, 2016 at the Solvay Hospice House in Duluth, MN. She was born to Clarence Lewis Stoufer and Sarah Francis (Parrack) Stoufer on October 31, 1935 in Macks Creek, Camden County, Missouri. She married Herbert B. "Bert" Owsley on April 22, 1955 in Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri who preceded her in death May 26, 2000.

After graduation from high school she, like many from her hometown, moved to Kansas City, Missouri to find work. She worked for the Sears Roebuck Co. for five years. Although she knew her husband since childhood in the Ozarks, it was only after they both lived in Kansas City that they began dating. After their wedding she continued to work while Bert studied engineering on the G.I. Bill. After his graduation she trained and become certified as a comptometer operator. In 1959, they moved to Neodesha, Kansas for Bert’s job. In 1960, Beulah gave birth to her only child Karen Denise. In 1962 the family moved back to the Kansas City area suburb of Overland Park Kansas. Beulah worked as a homemaker thereafter. In 1974 they moved into their dream home in nearby Shawnee, Kansas where Beulah lived until moving to Duluth, Minnesota to live near her daughter Karen and son-in-law Joseph Nease.

Through the years, Beulah and Bert had a good life built around family, faith, Bert’s work and travel, especially to Colorado and the Ozarks. Beulah loved being a homemaker, but she also had a lifelong, deep love and appreciation of music, and art. She was a talented and serious amateur artist painting in oils and watercolors and doing wheel thrown ceramics. She passed her love of art to her daughter and offering her unconditional support and encouragement as she studied and built a career in art. Beulah was also skilled at gardening, especially flowers, many crafts, home improvement, quilting and sewing.

In 2000, Bert passed away shortly after their 45th anniversary. In 2007 Beulah reconnected with her dear friend Pat Southard who encouraged her to begin attending Hope Lutheran Church in Shawnee Kansas. Beulah loved the new friends and fellowship she found there and the church became the center of her life until her death.

In 2009 she began suffering from dementia but was able to live on her own with help from family and friends until October 2015, when she moved into a memory care facility near Duluth, MN. When her health declined further she moved into Solvay Hospice House where she enjoyed their tender care and music videos until the end.

Beulah is survived in death by her daughter Karen Owsley Nease of Duluth, MN: son in law Joseph L. Nease, Duluth; MN, sister Bessie Laughlin of Springfield, Missouri and brother, Rubin Karl Stoufer of Macks Creek, Missouri and numerous nieces and nephews.

Memorial services will be held later in Shawnee, Kansas.

The family requests that in lieu of any flowers, donations be made to Hope Lutheran Church, 6308 Quivira Road, Shawnee, KS 66216.

Arrangements by Dougherty Funeral Home, Duluth, 218-727-3555