Berenice Fay ALLUM

  General Notes:

Photo: This photograph was taken by Kenneth Manson Allum, Sr. in 1974 at the funeral of his father, Alvin Lorando Allum. At left are Berenice (Allum) Kitching and her husband, Richard "Dick" Kitching. At right are Aileen (Allum) Wagner and her husband Donald "Don" Wagner. In the center, is Aileen and Don's daughter, Carol Ann (Wagner) Layman, 1935-1998.
From Kenneth M. Allum, Jr.


Berenice Fay Allum and her husband, Richard C. Kitching, were born in Kansas (Berenice) and Oklahoma (Richard), and the couple met and married in Oklahoma. Interesting for me is the fact that Richard's ancestral trail led me to Mahaska County, Iowa, a county adjoining Jasper County where Berenice's own ancestors had lived. Perhaps unknown to Berenice and Richard, their ancestors had lived in neighboring Iowa counties in the 1800s. --DeeAnna


1918 BIRTH of Berenice Fay Allum (in January)

1918 DEATH of great grandfather, Andrew Kimmins Allum (in July)

1920 CENSUS, Kansas, Sedgwick County, Wichita ("Bernice," age 1, with parents)

1930 CENSUS, Arkansas, Benton County, Gravette ("Berenice," age 12, with parents)

1943 ENLISTMENT in WACs

1944 DEATH of grandmother, Maggie E. J. (Bushong) Allum

1947 DEATH of grandfather, Nelson Melville Allum

1953 MARRIAGE of Berenice Fay Allum and Richard C. Kitching in May in Bartlesville, Oklahoma on May 23


Kenneth M. Allum, Jr.

"Berenice was the last of A. L. and Anna's children. She graduated from Gravette High School in 1936 and entered the WACs in 1943, serving in New Guinea and the Phillipines after their liberation. She worked for Philips Petroleum home office in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, for more than thirty years. There she met Richard Kitching. They were married in 1953 but had no children."


1955 DEATH of mother, Anna Marie (Walker) Allum

1974 DEATH of father, Alvin Lorando Allum

1992 DEATH of husband, Richard C. Kitching at 70 years 10 months 7 days

2005 DEATH, Berenice Fay (Allum) Kitching, at 87 years 4 months 17 days


Kenneth M. Allum, Jr., 2005

"Berenice was given a graveside service with a 3-rifle salute and taps. She was buried next to her husband, Richard C. Kitching, who was also a veteran of World War II serving in Italy and France in 1943 and 1944."




OBITUARY (Berenice) from HERALD CHRONICLE, Winchester, Tennessee, June 9, 2005:

KITCHING, BERENICE FAY, age 87, of Morristown, formerly of Gravette, Ark. and Bartlesville, Okla., passed away Tuesday, June 7, 2005 at Morristown Hamblen Healthcare System. She was a lifelong member of the Methodist Church and most recently attended First United Methodist Church in Morristown while residing at Grand Court.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Richard C. Kitching; her parents, Alvin and Anna Allum; her older sister, Aileen; and her brothers, Kenneth Sr. and Wendell.

She retired after a long and faithful employment with Philips Petroleum Co. in Bartlesville, Okla. She was a proud member of the WAAC during World War II, serving in New Guinea and the Philippine Islands after their liberation. She truly enjoyed many Veterans Day remembrances at Grand Court and the Heritage Center, and she was a charter member of WAC Memorial Association in Arlington National Cemetery. A military tribute graveside service is being planned for Hillcrest Cemetery in Gravette prior to interment beside her late husband. The family is most appreciative of the loving care that she received from Dr. Raymond Lowry, his staff and the staff members of Grand Court and Heritage Center. Memorials may be made to the Music Ministry or the Building Fund of First United Methodist Church of Morristown. Arrangements by Allen Funeral Home in Morristown.


This obituary also appeared in the TULLAHOMA NEWS, Tullahoma, Tennessee on June 9, 2005 and in the ELK VALLEY TIMES, Fayetteville, Tennessee, also on June 9.




BERENICE FAY ALLUM KITCHING

January 21, 1918 - June 7, 2005


A TRIBUTE

by Kenneth M. Allum, Jr.

(Copyright Kenneth M. Allum, Jr. All rights reserved)


My aunt, Berenice Fay Kitching, was born in Wichita, Kansas on January 21, 1918, the youngest of the four children born to Alvin L. and Anna Marie Walker Allum. Her older sister Aileen was then almost twelve and her older brothers, Kenneth (my dad) and Wendell, were ten and six.

When Berenice was just four, in dead of winter 1922, the Allum family moved from city living in Wichita to remote country living near Hiwasse, Arkansas, presumably so Alvin could assist his father Nelson with his family farm. Kenneth and Wendell (and presumably Aileen) rode horses bareback to and from school, even in the harsh cold. But very soon Alvin moved the family into Gravette, a little town some four miles farther west where he entered building trades and applied his skills to construct for his family a three bedroom frame home with all the modern conveniences of the time-indoor plumbing, radiator steam heat, and a kitchen with an oven and an electric cookstove. The house was located just across an open play field from the new combined grade and high school, much more accessible for all his children, particularly his baby girl who was very eager to start her schooling. That playfield also served as the town baseball diamond, where she could join her little girlfriends in the very respectable social event of cheering on the town heroes, including her brother Kenneth, in high school and "town team" baseball games.

No doubt from an early age she began the formidable task of advising all whom she encountered that her was B-e-r-e-n-i-c-e with a second "e" and that her middle name F-a-y had NO "e" in it! She was still on this crusade with persistence and fortitude even twenty years later when any of us three nephews who might err in writing her name on a score pad before beginning a heated game of dominos or anagrams (a precursor to Scrabble), which we all loved. Only when she entered the WACs in 1943, in the rigors of World War II, would she become "Fay" for all of her military records; presumably her crusade for the correct second "e" became too daunting in those hectic circumstances.

In high school she followed her brother Wendell's musical aptitude as far as she might, attempting to play clarinet to his saxophone and playing piano, although not so well as her sister Aileen. Neither was she gifted with a notable singing voice, although Wendell would have loved having her sing with his locally renowned dance band. One record does exist in the family archives, however, with her hesitant alto supporting her brother Wendell's confident baritone melody.

She played on the girl's high school basketball team in an era when girls played only half court and were selected for offense if they displayed a semblance of shooting skill, or to defense if they were otherwise talented with enthusiasm but little accuracy. Berenice played defense. But she prided herself (and her doting parents) with the expected straight "A's" through high school, except for one six-week "B-" penalty in deportment when some of her senior girlfriends and she played hooky one glorious spring morning. Nevertheless, she graduated valedictorian of the Gravette High School Class of 1936, and only years later would she confess that she was one of the Senior Class daredevils (and probably the only girl in the pack) who vertically climbed the one hundred feet or so to put "G.H.S. '36" on the town water tank in glorious red paint.

Thereafter she worked in her father's various building and service enterprises and then in Oglesby's Drug Store, running the soda fountain, one of only a few socially-acceptable positions in those days for an eligible young woman to see and be seen and to contribute to family finances, as well. Sadly she watched many of her classmates and friends leave for military life after the outbreak of World War II, and soon after her beloved brother Wendell enlisted in the Army in 1942 she signed up for the fledgling Women's Army Corps as the first enlistee from all of Benton County, undoubtedly a bold action for a sheltered young woman from rural Arkansas. One can only imagine the clash of anguish and pride raging within her parents' hearts!

Her basic training was in Iowa in the dead of winter, and the only uniform overcoats available to this novice organization were men's issue that seemed to weigh a ton and hung to their shoe tops. Parade inspection must have been a hilarious sight. Later she was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and she sent home to her parents and ultimately to the family archives, pictures of Wendell and herself in uniform, smiling in front of the Alamo in San Antonio. Later she would be sent overseas with all the hazard and discomfort of a long troopship voyage to New Guinea. There she met the local "fuzzywuzzies" (hairstyle) as she clerked in an Army dental office and eventually managed the local USAFI Program, the military continuing education program where servicemen and women learned the basics of new-fangled concepts like electricity and refrigeration and prepared for life after the war. From there she went to Manila, Philippine Islands after their liberation and saw the ravages of war at first hand. There she remembers awakening to church bells pealing out news of the Japanese surrender just as my cousin and I, half a world away, remember the bells in Gravette shouting the news while we played a game of croquet on my granddad's front yard. Berenice was back in the beloved USA by October, 1945, a world traveled young woman, justifiably proud of her service to home and country.

She then entered secretarial school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and after graduation she began a thirty year career with Philips Petroleum Company, initially in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. From there she returned to Gravette for holidays and periodic weekends and--from a car pool at Philips--she met Richard Kitching, who drove to visit parents in Gravette. He was also a veteran of World War II, having served in Italy during the Battle for Rome and later in the Southern France invasion. Their long car rides must have blossomed into romance, for they were married in the First Methodist Church of Bartlesville in May, 1953.

Berenice, then 35, would have no children of her own but "adopted" all seven of her nieces and nephews and remembered every birthday and Christmas with a card containing a bill holder with Thomas Jefferson's face and $2 smiling out through the window. She was always eager to try our new board games at Christmas and would do vigorous battle, but usually finished a close second.

Dick and Berenice remained employed with Philips and made career moves together to Houston, Texas and Greenville, South Carolina, but returned to Bartlesville as they neared retirement age. They traveled extensively in the U. S. and filled many scrapbooks with pictures and souvenirs of their discoveries and adventures. Berenice became very skilled at quilting and embroidery in winter months.

But then Dick died suddenly after a heart attack in 1992, and Berenice suffered a series of mini-strokes in 1997, unable to care for herself thereafter. My brother Lee and I arranged to move her belongings (and Dick's, too, that she hadn't the will to sort out in those five years), then drove her across three states to Morristown, Tennessee, with an overnight stop midway in Memphis. That was a lengthy, tiring trip, but she never complained.

We acquired a private room in assisted living for her at Grand Court where all meals were provided and LPNs were available to monitor her status and regulate her medicines. From her recliner she could cheer for her beloved Atlanta Braves and could walk the short distance to meals and to the beauty shop and could participate in bingo and other group games. She remained a loyal charter member of the WACs Memorial Association and enjoyed much deserved recognition at every Veterans Day ceremony. For several years my wife Midge and I would bring her to the house for Sunday dinners, holidays and special occasions, but over time such trips became too taxing for her. Other Sundays I would test her stamina by encouraging and assisting her to walk to the main dining room, a significant distance farther away than her usual eating location and, afterward, I would place a call to her brother Wendell in Florida so they could chat and reminisce. As her cognitive capabilities steadily waned, she was less able to recall my name when asked but always answered "Sure!" with some annoyance when asked if she knew who I was. To assess her mental clarity one day, Midge asked if she could recite the names of her brother Kenneth's three boys? After some vigorous study she declared, "Matthews, Mark, and John!" Not quite correct but a tribute perhaps to her long years of earnest Bible study. Why not Luke?

As inevitably happens with the elderly and unsteady, despite all reasonable precautions, she fell one night and fractured her pelvis. Unfortunately that injury is usually more painful and slow to heal than a surgically repairable fractured hip, and by the time her pain had abated enough that she could attempt assisted walking, she no longer had the muscle tone or coordination to do so. Therefore, she was unable to qualify for a return to assisted living. She was moved to Heritage Nursing Home, and despite continued efforts at ambulatory therapy, she became sequentially wheelchair bound, and then bed bound. However, she never lost her pluck and her cooperative spirit throughout her waning months and always enjoyed her hairdo days and maintained her pride in appearance.

When I visited her on June 5, 2005, she was obviously weaker and barely responsive, so I had her moved to the hospital for evaluation in the hope that IV fluids or something less than heroic treatments might bring comfort if not improvement. Unfortunately, the laboratory tests confirmed that she had suffered a heart attack in the preceding hours and, even with supportive care, she continued to fail. She died quietly, but in no distress, the morning of June 7. It is perhaps ironic that her heart attack occurred on the very day of the year her brother Kenneth, my dad, had died some twenty-six years previously, and she died a proud ex-WAC and true patriot the very day that the ferocious and very uncertain Battle of Normandy raged exactly sixty-one years earlier.

Many years before she had declared her wish to be buried with her deceased husband in Hillcrest Cemetery in Gravette, and since Lee lives just forty miles from there, he was able to make the graveside service arrangements from nearby. At the service, on a sweltering Arkansas summer morning, attended by two surviving classmates and a few younger friends from Gravette days, I recited a brief summary of her life, and Lee's friend, Reverend Art Fogartie, from the Bentonville First Presbyterian Church, conducted the service with prayer, appropriate scripture, a beautiful poem entitled "She is not Gone, She's Just Away" and true religious dignity. Then an eight-man color guard from VFW Post #100 in nearby Rogers, Arkansas, sounded taps and fired an appropriate three-rifle salute. Thereafter she was interred next to her husband as she requested, in the cool ground, beneath the rising heat of that torrid Arkansas midsummer morning. It was the type of morning that Berenice, if not advising a new friend about the proper spelling of her name while sharing a cool soda in Oglesby's Drug Store, would be planning with friends how to get down to spring-fed Spavinaw Creek, some two miles below town, for a laughing good time, challenging each other who would have the necessary courage to leap into the frigid water first. My bet will forever be on Alvin and Anna Marie's baby girl Berenice-and never forget that's B-e-r-e-n-i-c-e with a second "e" forever and immediately after the only "r."

Copyright Kenneth M. Allum, Jr. - All Rights Reserved

Berenice married Richard C. KITCHING, son of Eslie Clark KITCHING and Virginia Ruth BUGG, on May 23, 1953 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. (Richard C. KITCHING was born on January 5, 1922 in Oklahoma, died on November 12, 1992 and was buried in Hillcrest Cemetery, Gravette, Benton County, Arkansas.)