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Mildred Irene Pease Thomas, 94, passed away peacefully on Saturday February 19,2022 at Seasons Memory Care Center in Kansas City. She was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on March 10, 1927 to Robert and Elmira Havens Pease.
     Growing up during the depression, times were hard and the family moved in with her paternal grandparents. She sat at the feet of her grandparents and listened to all their stories and this is where she got the love for genealogy. Her father’s involvement as mechanic for Joe Huff, a Speedway race car driver, led to her love of the Indianapolis 500 race. She never missed watching a race on tv.
     She attended Crooked Creek Elementary and Speedway High School. Her Dad moved around with different jobs and besides Indiana she lived in Buffalo NY and Detroit MI and finally moved to Independence Missouri when she was seventeen. She was an only child and had a very large extended family of many aunts, uncles and cousins. She was active in many things growing up. She played the accordion, ice skated and roller skated, pumped gas at her Dad’s gas station. She was in Girl Scouts, Zions League and enjoyed endless hours with her cousins that were like siblings to her.
     After moving to Independence she worked as a switchboard operator at Southwestern Bell Telephone company both in Independence and Kansas City until her marriage to the love of her life, Jimmie Thomas in June 1949. After their marriage she joined him in Columbia MO while he finished his degree. They returned to Independence after graduation along with their first born child. They built a garage apartment on her parents property, on what is now 23rd Street. While living in this four room apartment their family grew with two more children. In November 1958 the family moved to the new home built with love by her husband for her that she remained in until she thought the upkeep was becoming to much for her.
     Throughout her life she worked many different jobs from selling Avon, Tupperware, Stanley, Fashion Frocks, Amway, Shaklee, to name a few. Plus worked at Blackburn Elementary Cafeteria, JC Penny, Fields Furniture and Chambers Tax Service and volunteered at the Laurel Club, KC library Heart of America and the LDS Genealogy Center and was president of the Elswood Meadows Garden Club.
     Mildred joined Jim on a work trip to Washington DC and stayed in a boarding house with a lady who belonged to the NSDAR and she got her interested in joining DAR and she began a lifetime of genealogy. Many vacations were spent in cemeteries, courthouses and libraries and the homes of newly found distant cousins. This past year she celebrated 50 years as a member of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution being a member of the Sarah Lewis Boone Chapter and then the Independence Pioneers Chapter of DAR.
     She traveled to Europe three times with her cousins and while there also worked on some of her husband’s genealogy and with her daughter and granddaughter visiting their exchange students. She had visited 48 states in her travels.
     She was a people person and loved her family, immediate and extended with a passion. She is survived by son, Danny R. Thomas and wife Kim, daughter, Dalina Stevens and husband Bob, daughter, Susan Frisbey and husband Dennis. Grandchildren; Robert Davis, Danny Thomas II, Anne Griffitt, Virginia Crimmins, James Stevens, Christi McEntee, Ben Frisbey, Kierra Thomas, Cheryl Hess, Cindy Homicki. 14 great grandchildren and numerous great great grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her husband James Thomas, granddaughter Rona Robertson Stevens.
     In Honor of Mildred's love of life, family and friends please join the family for a memorial service and final birthday party, 1:30pm Monday February 28th at Community of Christ Beacon Heights Church, 19402 East Holke Rd. Independence. Missouri 64057

—Charter Funerals, Kansas City, Missouri