So often the phrase “faith of a mustard seed” is uttered to describe a person’s faith in the Lord. Ninety-five year old Frances Kees has lived by those words her entire life and she has the memories to prove it.
A Simpson County native, Kees moved from her hometown of Mendenhall to Magee in 1944 at the request of then School Superintendent Carlton Traylor. Even though she had coursework to complete as a history major, he was desperate for a teacher and said she could finish her degree in the summer. Kees fell in love with Magee and her first grade students. She was 19 at the time.
Two years later she met an Air Force officer, Robert Kees, who had flown 28 missions during World War II. In 1948 they married and over the years had three children, Kay, Bobby, and Jane. “Magee was a wonderful place to raise your family. We knew no street addresses but we knew where everybody lived. And children could ride their bikes to school,” Kees explained.
She still lives in the same house that she and Bob built to make memories and grow old together. However, Frances’ husband died in 1971 after suffering three heart attacks. She was 44. When he died, the couple was two-thirds of the way to being empty nesters with their two older children in college and youngest finishing high school. Kees commented, “We were young, enjoying each other, so pleased with our family. It was a really sad year, sort of like 2020.”
Frances Kees’ life has been lived as a novel boasting many chapters intertwined with joy and grief but always watered by the grace and mercy of the Lord.
While the children were young, Kees decided she wanted to be home with them as often as possible. In 1955 she because the Director of Education of the Preventorium, the children’s division of the Mississippi Sanatorium, a hospital for tuberculosis patients. It was located where Boswell Regional Center is now. “God works in so many wonderful ways. I was doing what I loved because teaching was my first love. It was a wonderful place to work and good for me. People there were very very close to each other.”
Kees began working at Stephens Department Store in Magee during her off time in the summer. “I’d been there for two weeks when Mrs. Stephens sent me to market and said ‘buy what you think we need.’” Not knowing what to buy, Kees bought for her friends.
The Stephens asked her to continue working at the store even after the new school year began and Kees agreed. She taught in the morning and worked at the store in the afternoon. When the department store closed she moved to The Rose Ladies Apparel owned and operated by Mary Joyce Walters, daughter of the original Stephens family. “They were a wonderful family to work for. I was my own boss; they were my special friends who became special family for me. A large part of my heart left when Mary passed away (February 2021),” she said.
Because of her required trips to market for the stores she grew to love traveling, not only the United States but abroad as well. One of her first European excursions was a trip to the 1985 Florian World Flower Show in the Netherlands, where she and dear friend Marie Pruitt visited the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens. From there the two took a three week river cruise down the Seine and visited other European gardens.
Fast forward eight years. “In 1993, God brought a very special person into my life, LaVern Butler. He had lost his wife and I was busy during those years of 1971 to 1993. I never had time to think about a relationship.” But Kees explained they understood each other. They cooked for each other, shared morning coffee outside under the trees at her home when weather permitted and traveled together. As she stated, “He had my back. It was a sweet sweet relationship.”
Kees’ daughter Kay Cashion was keenly aware of her mother’s love of travel together with history. Cashion taught for 31 years at Northwest Rankin School, originally elementary students before moving on to high school gifted students. “I became involved in EF Tours, a company based in Boston, Massachusetts, that provided student and adult tours all over the world.”
In 1995 Cashion offered a tour to Italy and Greece to her students and their parents as her curriculum included Greek and Roman civilizations. She also invited her mother and LaVern. “This was my first time to visit either country, and to experience that with my mother was something I will treasure forever!” Kees loved the EF Tours as they were not only designed for sightseeing but learning as well.
Cashion continued, “We sailed through the Greek Islands stopping at Mykonos, Santorini, Patmos where the Apostle John received and wrote the Revelation, and on to Ephesus in Turkey. To be able to share visiting so many sites that were so important to Christianity with my mother really impacted us both as Christians. Experiencing the ancient world in modern times adds a depth of understanding and appreciation of God’s word that is difficult to describe.”
All through her life Frances Kees has leaned upon the Lord to not only face and survive adversity but thrive through it. She has been an active member of Magee First Baptist Church since joining at 23 years old. She has been a member of the choir for 75 of those years and taught a ladies’ Sunday School class for 70 years. “I love teaching because I study. If I don’t teach, I read, but I don’t study,” Kees commented.
When the church returned to full Sunday mode in May of this year, she returned to teaching her Sunday School class. It has been a bittersweet return, however. On December 19, 2020, LaVern Butler tested positive for COVID 19 after discovering that his daughter Judy McDonniel, had tested positive. Both Judy and Kees were in and out of Butler’s home regularly. Kees soon tested positive as well. Her children were concerned but she would not allow them to come into her home while she was in quarantine recovering. While Kees improved, Butler did not. He was admitted to the hospital and passed away on December 30, 2020. “I was so devastated because he would call me to come get him; he was ready to go home! That was a dark time,” Kees explained.
Frances Kees is quick to acknowledge that she has had a wonderful life. At 95 she still drives herself to town and to Jackson. She has made many wonderful friends across the state and abroad. She has a trip scheduled to Branson, Missouri in September 2021 if all goes according to plan. And she attributes all the good in her life and her many blessings to God the Creator. “Time is in God’s Hands. Sometimes I’ve wondered why He’s left me here and I’m so thankful He did. Every day I try to say ‘This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!’ regardless of my circumstances.”
Kees wants no one to feel sorry for the path her life has taken. “Life is a gift and it can still be beautiful. That’s what I want my friends to understand; people that know me. I want them to still be happy I’m coming, not dreading to see me, thinking ‘poor me; look what I’ve been through.’”
Daughter Kay offered these comments on her mother: “I realize every day how very lucky we all are to still have my mother with us. Mother’s faith in God has carried her through every storm in life, and in 95 years there have been many storms. But no matter what event may come to challenge her, she always has a heart full of hope that ‘this too shall pass.’ “I love the fact that no matter how bad things may seem, mother always says ‘Even so, Life is Beautiful.’ These are words to live by from an exceptional woman we call Franny.”
