FOWLER – Esther Olive Figgins, age 90, died Monday morning, March 30, 2009, at the Lone Tree Retirement Center, Meade, Kansas.

She was born January 11, 1919, the youngest of eight children, of Frank and Bertha Mae (Haisley) Figgins, on a farm west of Burr Oak, Kansas. The family was living in South Dakota, when her father died when she was two and one half years of age.

Through the years Esther and her mother lived in several places before moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she graduated from high school. She later attended the Pilgrim Holiness Bible College. As a young girl she had felt a calling to minister and later became a Recorded Friends Minister on July 1, 1949.

During her thirty-seven years as a pastor, she ministered in Iowa, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas, with her mother at her side until her health failed. Upon her retirement she moved to Fowler, making her home here until moving to Meade.

She was a member of the Fowler Friends Church, Ministerial Association, and the WCTU. Esther enjoyed quilting, crocheting, handicrafts, working with youth groups and the 4-H.

She is survived by twenty-four nieces and nephews, numerous great-nieces and nephews; great-great-nieces and nephews, and great-great-great-nieces and nephews.

She is preceded in death by her parents; five brothers, Lester, Russell, Ora, Willis, and Ennis Figgins; two sisters, Minnie Mae Zortman and Gladys Osburn; three nieces and a nephew.

Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Thursday, April 2, 2009, at the Fowler Friends Church, Fowler, with Pastor Shane Shetley and Reverend Lyle Whiteman presiding. Friends may call from 9:30 a.m. until service time at the church. Interment will be in the Fowler Cemetery, Fowler.

The family would welcome memorials to Barkley College in care of Fidler-Orme-Bachman Mortuary, Meade.