Obituary of Beulah Longacre FINLEY

Beulah Messer Longacre Finley passed away Thursday, March 12, 2004. She was the youngest of 11 children and the last surviving child of Robert Lee and Malinda R. Della (Mulherin) Messer. She was born February 23, 1913 in Alton, MO and moved with her family as an infant to Stroud, OK, where her father farmed and her mother ran a boarding house. She said that her father paid her to stay out of the cotton fields because she was such a poor cotton picker. She much preferred to stay in the house and help in the kitchen.As a young , she went to work as a Harvey , working in Gallup, NM, Parker, AZ and finally Needles, CA until that Harvey House was closed. She met and married Carroll Grant Longacre, a fireman on the Santa Fe R.R. and they had four children.With her children grown, she went to work for Claypool Co. in Needles and was the manager of the lunch counter of their store in Lake Havasu City when it opened on McCulloch Blvd. After going to work for McCulloch Industries as a machine operator, she retired after 10 years. She worked as a volunteer for St. Vincent's for many years.She is survived by her daughters, Dorothy Kennard and her husband Neil of Fallbrook, CA and Malinda Bradley and her husband Ron of Lake Havasu City, AZ; sons Randell Longacre and his wife Krissy of Needles, CA and Thomas Longacre and his wife Amber of Mohave Valley, AZ; grandchildren, Lisa Kobori and her husband Larry of Newark, CA, David Kennard and his wife Janet of Albany, CA, Katherine Patkin and her husband Robert of Sanford, CT, John Kennard of Fallbrook, CA, D'Arcy Babcock and her husband Robert, Douglas Bradley and his wife Lisa of Lake Havasu City, AZ, Deirdre Paris and her husband Luigi of Ocean View, HI, David Bradley of Ovieto, FL, Zackery Longacre of Palm Springs, CA, Zabrina Longacre and Randell Longacre Jr. of Needles, CA, Susan Longacre of Needles, CA, Thomas A. Longacre of Mohave Valley; 17 great-grandchildren, Sean, Liane and Evan Kobori, Haley and Anna Kennard, Joshua and Jeremiah Babcock, Coy, Michael and Timothy Bradley, Gauge and Ethan Longacre, Bodi, Sara and Hannah Longacre, Faith Longacre and Madison Longacre.Beulah was preceded in by husbands, Carroll Grant Longacre and Henry S. Finley; her parents, Robert Lee Messer and Malinda R. Della Mulherin Messer; 3 brother, 7 sisters and 1 niece.A visitation will be held Saturday, March 20, 9:00 AM at First Southern Baptist Church, 404 F St., Needles, CA, followed by the funeral services at 10:00 AM. Pastor Craig Burroughs will officiate. Interment will be at the Needles Cemetery following the funeral services.Arrangements were entrusted Lietz-Fraze Funeral Home & Crematory.