Louise Wilcox Breshears

Louise Wilcox Breshears, 89, was born April 7, 1927, to Alice Dirks Wilcox and James Benjamin Wilcox at El Dorado, KS. She passed away March 27, 2017, after struggling to recover from surgery to repair a broken femur.

In 1939 the Wilcox family moved to Harwood, and Louise attended Oak Ridge and El Dorado Springs for high school. She was a graduate of high school in Arlington, WA, and attended college in Washington state.

The family moved back to Missouri, and the Wilcox’s had a farm in Cedar Springs. Louise worked at the shoe factory in El Dorado Springs and studied photographic arts.

She married Albert Lytle in Reno, NV, and had two daughters with him, Marta and Kim. After a divorce in 1959, she and her daughters moved back to El Dorado Springs, where Alice and Jim Wilcox then ran a boarding house at 111 Hickory St. Louise worked with John Gundy to publish several books and articles about El Dorado Springs and the history of Cedar County and surrounding counties for the Tri County Heritage newspaper and the Kansas City Star.

From 1961 to 1964, she operated her own photographic studio on Main Street in El Dorado Springs. She did many high school senior graduate photographs as well as family portraits and weddings. During this time, she met and married George Mashburn and to that marriage, her third daughter, Tobi, was born in Lebanon.

Her career as a professional photographer led to working for the Department of the Army at Ft. Leonard Wood and Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, as well as Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs.

After retirement, she returned to El Dorado Springs where she enjoyed her friends, fishing, swimming and the outdoors.

She married Claude Lollar in 1989 and enjoyed five happy years with him until his death in 1994.

She loved the history of the local area around the Osage River and authored a book “Lost Trails and Tall Tales of the Osage.”

In 2004 she married R.T. Breshears and they enjoyed their life together on Jackson St. and attended First Christian Church.

She is survived by her three daughters – Marta Lytle Reiner, Kim Lytle and Tobi See. Grand children are Jodi Hale Cubbage, Celia Hale Mullins, and Cenda, Nathaniel, Elisha and Jacob See, and seven great – and nine great-great grandchildren. She is survived by her sister, Lucille Tschanz.

Services will begin at 2 p.m. Friday, March 31, in Bland-Hackleman Funeral Home with Rev. Jack Daniel officiating. The family will receive friends from 1:00-2:00.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Foundation for the Blind and left at the funeral home.

Online condolences may be left at: www.blandhackleman.com.