On Sunday, March 1, our dear mom, Arla Faye McElhaney, 90, joined our dad Carl in Heaven. Arla was born on March 12, 1924 in Pittsburg, to Arthur and Odessa Jones. She graduated from high school in Magazine, Ark., and attended business college in Chillicothe, Mo. She married Carl McElhaney and started a family in Wichita. In 1952 they settled in Great Bend with their two sons, Kenneth and Phillip. They were both active leaders in Cub Scouts, where Arla was a den mother and Carl was a scoutmaster. She loved her flower gardens and was very proud of the varieties she grew at home. Carl worked as a furrier until his death in 1960. Arla’s business college background allowed her to provide for the two boys as a bookkeeper, and she raised two responsible adults. She was devoted to her family and encouraged her sons to play musical instruments throughout school and had great joy in following her sons to cities around Kansas for various Drum and Bugle Corps competitions during the 1960s. Arla was a member of the Methodist church in Great Bend. She gave her family many blessings but most importantly the understanding of unconditional love.
Arla was preceded in death by her mother and father, husband Carl, sisters Marge Conard and Corlela Birkhead, and their husbands Ralph and Lowell.She is survived by two sons, Kenneth, Anadarko, Okla.; and his children Evan, Anna and her husband Rick Bentley, Ben and grandchildren; and Phillip and Janice of Prairie Village, and their children Spencer, Sara and her husband Michael Obermeier. Cousins, nieces, nephews and other family members will miss her dearly.
The family wishes to give special thanks to Frannie, Tina, Tammy and the entire staff at Medicalodge Kinsley for the wonderful loving care they provided Arla for over 10 years.
Graveside services will be at 2 p.m. Friday, March 6 at Greenhill Cemetery in Muskogee, Okla. with burial next to her beloved husband Carl.


Funeral arrangements provided by
Shipman Funeral Home**
1325 N. York, Muskogee, Okla., 74402
Great Bend (Kans.) Tribune, March 5, 2015