Veda Hale

Veda Belle Kelly Hale

Veda Belle Kelly Hale was born in Lipan, Texas on January 3, 1912. She was the youngest of four children born to Charles E. Kelly and Sarah Lavinia Hood Kelly.

While growing up with an older sister and two older brothers, the family moved to Colorado for a time and then to Depew, Oklahoma, where she received most of her middle and high school training. The week she graduated from high school, her mother died. Veda did go to the Oklahoma College for Women, for a year in Chickasha, Oklahoma.

She married her high school sweetheart, Roy Hale, in 1930. Music was one of the things she loved most about Roys big family. She loved the Hale gettogethers and looked forward to the Irish jigs and hoedownsbut most of all, the gospel songs.

She joined the First Osage Baptist Church of Fairfax in 1933. There, she started teaching the young married womens class, and did so for twentyfive years. She was also active in the Womens Missionary Union and helped with Vacation Bible School and on other committees.

Veda worked for twenty years in Fairfax for the Indian Electric Cooperative. After retirement, she traveled widely to many European countries, to Scandinavia, to the Middle East, and to both Hawaii and Alaska, as well as many mainland U.S. states.

Her interests included gardening, golfing, fishing, and sewing. She was very good at all of these. She was active in the Historical Society, on the committee to procure the wrought iron fence for the cemetery, the Library Board, Eastern Star and various other committees. She was a charter member of the Fairfax Study Club, where she held many offices, including that of President.

In addition to four children, she is grandmother to eleven, greatgrandmother to sixteen, and great great grandmother to five. Veda passed from this life to her reward on Thursday, July 7, 2011. She had celebrated her 99th birthday on January 3rd.

A graveside service will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, July 8th, 2011 at the Fairfax Cemetery pavilion.