Melba Kiser

Melba “Penny” Kiser passed away Monday, December 16, 2024 in Abilene. A celebration of life will be held at 10:00 a.m. at the First Baptist Church of Roby on January 4, 2025. Directed by Weathersbee-Ray Funeral Home.

Penny was born July 9, 1939, in Shreveport, Louisiana to the late Frank Briton and Eva Marie (Thomas) Wilson. In 1957, she married Milton Jennings in Abilene. In 1976, she married Cecil Kiser, Jr., in Roby.

Penny attended St. Joseph’s Academy in Abilene, Texas, from second grade until graduation in 1956. She married at age 17 and soon began her most cherished role–that of being a mother. She wrote in her diary that her life dream was to be a mother, and that her life really began when she gave birth to her first child.

Penny’s Christian faith influenced her husbands, her children, and her friends. Later in life, at Roby First Baptist Church, Penny taught a women’s Sunday school class for approximately thirty years. She loved her group of ladies, and she loved her church. Penny also worked as a tax assessor/collector at the Fisher County Courthouse for almost four decades, forging special friendships with co-workers and the community.

Penny had great, unconditional love for her children, and her grandchildren were lucky to experience that too. She was a wonderful grandmother, who made countless visits to her distant grandkids; an avid reader since a young girl; a writer, jotting details down in her diaries (for 70+ years); loved buying clothes (from the sale rack) and wearing “bling”; people watching–a trait formed as a young girl (watching people on the Abilene city bus that she took to school every day); sewing (her therapy and stress reliever–until her daughters and granddaughters outgrew her style); she never met a baby she couldn’t resist touching (much to the embarrassment of at least one of her kids); and for the last three years of her life, she loved sitting on her throne (recliner) in her new home in Abilene, watching tv and playing mahjong (with the added blessing of seeing her kids and grandkids more often).

2024 was difficult for Penny, as she battled stage 5 kidney disease. Deciding to discontinue dialysis, Penny succumbed to this disease while at Hendrick Hospice Care in Abilene.

Penny was preceded in death by her husband Cecil Kiser, Jr., infant daughter, Ginger Jennings, parents, Frank Briton and Eva Marie (Thomas) Wilson, half-sister Blanche Browning (Leonard), and Milton Jennings (father of her first four children).

She is Survived by her children, Jay Jennings, Greg Jennings (Denise), Jana Gustafson (Alan), Kendra Sample (Brett); eight grandchildren, Emily, Sarah, Kylie (Stuart), Jenny, Jack, Allison, Jett, Maya; one great grandchild Julian; and half-brother, Benny Wilson.