ELAINE KIEFFER

1932 - 2016

Elaine Kieffer, 83, of Overland Park, KS, passed into eternal life on May 12, 2016. A memorial service celebrating Elaine's life will be held on Friday, May 27, at 1:30 p.m. at Bonfils Chapel, Community Christian Church, 4601 Main St., Kansas City, MO, and the family will receive friends immediately thereafter. Private burial will be in Floral Hills Cemetery. Elaine was born June 27, 1932, in Eugene, OR. In addition to Eugene, OR, throughout her childhood she lived in Julesburg, CO, Fort Morgan, CO, Denver, CO, and Albuquerque, NM, where she graduated high school in 1950. Elaine graduated from Phillips University in Enid, OK, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in education in 1954. At Phillips University, Elaine was a member of Zonta International, an organization devoted to empowering women worldwide through service and advocacy. Elaine taught upper elementary school for a number of years in Boulder, CO, Merriam, KS, and Kansas City, MO. Elaine met her husband, Paul Kieffer, at Community Christian Church in Kansas City, MO. Elaine and Paul were married in 1956 at Merriam Christian Church, by her father the Rev. Ira Bailes. In 1967, Elaine and Paul embarked on their own business, Midwest Importers in Kansas City, through which they imported music boxes, clocks and related components from Switzerland, Germany and other western European countries. They served both retail and wholesale customers in Kansas City and nationwide. Elaine treasured the opportunity to work along side her husband in their family business, as well as the many relationships she built with the craftsmen in the US who purchased their components and the craftsmen who supplied their products from a variety of small European hamlets, many of whom were small family businesspeople themselves. Throughout her life, Elaine was emphatically a "people person." She loved people, and loved to hear the details of their lives, whether those details were remarkable or mundane. She rarely talked of herself, except perhaps an occasional self- deprecating story. Instead, she invariably turned conversation towards others. She was often heard to say "you should write a story about that" whenever someone (most often, family) shared a personal or humorous anecdote -- a testament to how much she enjoyed hearing the details of others' lives. She had a wonderful sense of humor and loved to laugh. She was involved in her church as time permitted, and she served on the Evangelism Committee at Community Christian church through which she delivered loaves of home-made bread to church visitors. Elaine was selfless to a fault, and she poured herself out in service to her family. In addition to being a devoted working wife and mother, she cared for her husband throughout a lengthy illness that left her widowed in 1983. Thereafter, she cared for both of her aging parents in the home, until their deaths. Perhaps most of all, Elaine savored the role of grandmother. She enthusiastically and regularly engaged with all of her grandchildren and sought to identify and nurture each of their individual gifts. Never one to sit idle, she routinely embarked on large adventures with these small people -- parks, museums, crafts, cooking, and many others too numerous to name. Elaine bore the trials of advancing age with grace, courage and without complaint. Even in her latter days, Elaine encouraged her family to spend less time on her so that they could attend to other people and other things. Elaine loved her family with a single-minded devotion and left her deep and lasting imprint upon each of them. Her legacy of love and service set the bar high for those generations of her family which remain and who aspire to honor and emulate her example. She was a precious gift to generations of her family and she will be deeply, deeply missed. Elaine was preceded in death by her husband, Paul Kieffer, her parents, Ira and Vivian Bailes, and her brother, Kendall Bailes. She is survived by her daughter, Julia Gass and her husband, James Gass, Prairie Village, KS; her son, Jonathan Kieffer, and his wife, Jacqueline Kieffer, Lake Quivira, KS; and grandchildren Jason and Jenna Gass, and Gabrielle, Sophie and Vivian Kieffer. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to The Community Christian Church Food Pantry, 4601 Main St., KCMO, 64112 (Arr. Floral Hills Funeral Home, 816-353-1218) N