Blanch Parker

Services for Blanch Parker, 95, Shawnee, were Saturday, Jan. 10, at Amos Family Chapel of Shawnee. Burial was in Johnson County Memorial Gardens.
Mrs. Parker died Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009, at Shawnee Mission Medical Center.
She was born Sept. 19, 1913, in Pierce City, Mo., the daughter of William and Louella Wilson Smith.
Mrs. Parker came to Kansas City with older siblings and took care of children in her employers’ homes while attending Northeast and Paseo high schools. She worked at Union Station handling mail during World War II. Later she became a beautician, managing her brother Fred Smith’s Shoe Repair, Beauty and Barber Shop on the square in Independence, Mo. She started and owned Chic Beauty Salon in 1948 in Kansas City, Kan., where she had four full-time beauticians until she sold the shop in 1964. She had a reduced clientele in her home beauty shop on State Avenue until 1972.
Mrs. Parker’s church activities were with Grandview Christian Church and Stoney Point Christian Church in Kansas City, Kan., where she was in the women’s society, choir and a deaconess. She later became a member of the First Baptist Church in Shawnee.
Upon moving to Shawnee in 1972, she formed and directed the Merriam Senior Nutrition Center’s Kitchen Band that played at Old Shawnee Days and nursing homes throughout the area. she was also a secretary for the Johnson County Area on Aging’s Nutrition Site Council.
Mrs. Parker believed strongly in taking care of her health and lived in her home with some home housekeeping, Meals on Wheels and visiting nurse care until she went to the hospital, where died of congestive heart failure.
She was married in 1934 to Edson Briggs Parker Jr., who died in 1984. She was also preceded in death by two daughters, Jo Ann Powell and Lois G. Clark, both of the Kansas City area.  
Survivors include a son, Edson B. Parker III, Overland Park.; five grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; and 18 great-great-grandchildren.
The family requests memorials to the Overland Park Host Lions Club Endowment Fund or the City Union Mission, sent in care of the funeral chapel, 10901 Johnson Drive, Shawnee, KS 66203.
Online condolences can be made at amosfamily.com.
Arr.: Amos Family Chapel of Shawnee