Ethel Mae McKelvey

Funeral services for Ethel Mae McKelvey, 96, of Lawrence, will be held at 11:00 a.m. Thursday, April 19, at First Southern Baptist Church, 4300 West 6th Street, Lawrence. Mrs. McKelvey died peacefully Saturday, April 14, at Brandon Woods surrounded by her family.
Ethel was born July 7, 1915, in Stratton, Nebraska, the daughter of James Elvis and Frances Ann Smedley Sanderson. She attended school in Desoto, Kansas and had cosmetology schooling at Vanity Beauty Shop in Lawrence. She married Herbert McKelvey on August 19, 1931, in Olathe, Kansas. She opened Ethel’s Beauty Shop in Lawrence in 1956. She was a member of First Southern Baptist Church, where she volunteered as a Sunday School teacher, the Knife and Fork Club, and attended Christian Women’s Club. She enjoyed reading, traveling, working on her yard, and visiting at nursing homes.
Survivors include two daughters, Virginia Noel, of San Diego, California; Barbara Forman, and her husband, John Forman, of Buckeye, Arizona; 7 grandchildren, 25 great grandchildren and 21 great-great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Herbert McKelvey, on Oct. 31, 1984; daughter, Vera Ruth McKenzie on Nov. 27, 1999; brother, Robert Sanderson on June 29, 2011; and her parents and two sisters, Eva Shore and Ella Russell.
Friends may call from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, at the Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home, and the family will receive friends from 10 a.m. until the service on Thursday, April 19 at the church. The family suggests memorials to the Grace Hospice in care of the funeral home.
Online condolences may be sent at www.rumsey-yost.com.