Martha E. Chrystie

Martha Sloan Breeden Chrystie. Martha Elverna Sloan was born on November 12, 1917 in Morton Co, KS to John and Anna (Eversoll) Sloan. She died quietly in her sleep on October 5, 2015 at the age of 97. The house where she was born and raised north of Elkhart is still standing and occupied. In the early “dirty thirties” the family moved to Latham, KS where she graduated from high school in 1936. She graduated from El Dorado Junior College with a lifetime teaching certificate and taught several years at Latham. She married Robert Breeden in 1943 in Wichita. To this union her children Joyce Kay and Kenneth Robert were born. He preceded her in death in 1955. She went back to school at Wichita University and received her Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education and taught first grade in the Wichita School System until her retirement in 1982 at the age of 65. She married Ted Chrystie in 1982 and they lived in Nickerson, KS where he was the pastor of the Christian Church for several years. Upon his retirement they moved back to Wichita permanently. They traveled extensively from coast to coast during their retirement. He preceded her in death in 2002. She lived in the same house from her first marriage until the age of 94 where her washer and dryer were in the basement and she worked in her yard every day that weather permitted. She enjoyed watching the birds at her bird feeders and bird bath and delighted when the squirrels and cats were unsuccessful. A lifelong Christian, she was a charter member of Old Manor Baptist Church and a member until it disbanded; then Broadway Christian Church and New Hope Christian Church. She taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School over the years. She was definitely in the old school generation - no cell phones, no internet, no computer - the tv remote sometimes presented a challenge. She wrote letters, sent cards and talked on the phone or face to face conversation. She had a great memory for faces and remembering people. She would see someone she had taught 30 or 40 years earlier and know them by name. Besides her husbands, other family members who preceded her in death are her parents, and sisters, Irene Oswald, Jessie Rutherford and Ethel Ackerman Burke. Survivors include daughter, Joyce, and husband, Rick Smith of Guymon, OK; son, Kenneth, and wife, Jenny Breeden of Nashville, TN; granddaughters, Michelle, and husband, Brandon Bergner of Enid, OK, Jesse, and husband, Peter OReilly of New York City; grandson, Sloan Breeden of Austin, TX; great-grandsons, Johnathan, William and Benjamin Bergner of Enid, OK. Services will be at 10:30 A.M., Tuesday, October 13 at Downing Lahey East Chapel, 6555 W. Central in Wichita. Interment will be follow at White Chapel Cemetery. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to a charity of choice.