HANCOCK, Leota Mary ( Lowrey) - b. September 8, 1902 - d. March 31, 2001

[Janet Harrington]

Leota Hancock

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HOWARD - Leota Mary Hancock, 98, died March 31, 2001, at Howard Twilight Manor.

Services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Peotone Cemetery near Viola.  Pastor Robin Haines will officiate.  Zimmerman Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Hancock was born Sept. 8, 1902, near Kremlin in Oklahoma Territory, to Elsie Myrtle (Chandler) and Samuel Preston Lowrey.  The family later moved to the Chandler family farm in Sumner County.

As a young woman, Hancock became a hired girl who lived with a family during the coming of a baby's birth and stayed until the mother was back on her feet.  She often assisted the doctor with delivering babies.

On Jan. 25, 1925, she married Pinckney P. Hancock in Milton.  The family lived for many years in the Viola and Clearwater areas where they farmed.  Hancock and her husband were both Star route mail carriers.  She was one of the first women to be employed in that capacity.

In 1947 the Hancocks bought a farm in Union Center Township in Elk County.  Hancock lived there 38 years, remained after her husband's death in 1976.  In 1985 she sold part of the farm and moved to Haysville to be closer to her children.  She moved to Howard Twilight Manor in 1994.

Survivors include two sons, Wayne Hancock and Dale Hancock, both of Wichita; two daughters, June Matzen, Bucklin, and Wilma Weyrauch, Haysville; a brother, John Lowrey, Winfield; three sisters, Damie Hutson, Olympia, Wash., Elsie Genteman, Harper, and Dorothy Whitley, Mulvane; 13 grandchildren, 29 great-grandchildren and 17 great-great-grandchildren.