Elvira Barham Henderson

is honored with a Medium Paver from Robert Moore.

Elvira Elizabeth Barham Henderson's travels began at the youthful age of six months. Elvira's parents moved by train from Missouri to Oklahoma Territory in 1904. This began a lifetime of physically and intellectually traveling through life by the petite, soft spoken, and very determined Elvira.

Being the first born, Elvira helped raised her younger brothers and sisters while attending school in the pioneer environment on the harsh plains of Oklahoma. At the tender age of sixteen, she graduated from high school, began working at a local dry goods store, attending junior college for one year while saving funds to attend Oklahoma A&M College (now Oklahoma State University).

After receiving her teaching certificate in 1926, Elvira taught high school at Pershing, OK for one year before her marriage to Edgar Lewis Henderson. During the late 1920s and 1930s, Elvira was busy raising her two young children.

By 1938 Elvira was traveling again as her husband started a career in civil service and frequent moving began to be the norm for her family. Despite the hardships of the 1930s and 1940s, Elvira was always optimistic about the present and the future, taking charge of her situation and destiny. Independently, Elvira would drive across Oklahoma, at a time when few women drove themselves never more than a few miles from home, on poor roads with two small children for visits with their grandparents to maintain family ties.

With her husband away due to World War II, she decided to pursue a degree in dietetics, taking as many as 21 credit hours in one semester, and graduated Cum Laude while caring for her children. Using her degree as they moved to Kansas, Elvira began a career working as a dietitian for Wesley Hospital and Wichita Clinic, as well as for Santa Fe Hospital in Topeka.

Elvira believed that Christian charity should begin at home and extend out into the world to all she came in contact with through kind, compassionate living. Practicing this belief, she was a gracious woman who was interested in other peoples lives and rarely did she talk about herself nor did she ever speak a negative word about another person. Elvira's son-in-law considered her the perfect mother-in-law, which is an insurmountable feat in and of itself according to many. She was the perfect hostess for the entertainment she provided for her church friends and Lewis' career. She enjoyed the culinary arts and was an extraordinary cook beyond compare.

Elvira enjoyed traveling extensively in the United States and Canada. While living in Orleans, France for two years, Elvira traveled countless miles discovering the sights of Europe all the while sending encouragement home to her grandchildren to take advantage of the present while preparing for whatever the future offered.

September 14, 1998