Francis J. Lickteig

FRANCIS J. LICKTEIG

Francis (Whitey) James Lickteig, age 93, passed on August 28, 2016 at Overland Park, Kansas. Francis was born April 4, 1923, and recorded by the State of Kansas as April 5, 1923, near Greeley, Kansas.

Francis was predeceased by his wife Mildred Esther Miller Lickteig in 2003. He is survived by his children Theodore (Ted) (Sheryl) Lickteig, Anne (Jerry) Lormis and David Lickteig. He is also survived by six granddaughters, Rebecca (Paul) Ledgard, Hannah Lickteig, Rachel and Kylie Lormis and Jessica and Grace Lickteig, and by two great-grandsons, Lucas Edward Ledgard and Remington Gage Lorimis.

All of Francis' siblings predeceased him. He had five brothers: Raymond, Alfred, Dominic, Fabian, and Jerome. Fabian became Father Bernard of the Carmelite order. Jerome followed him into the order and became Father Fergus. They remain our holy ghosts. One brother, Lester, died before Francis was born. He had four sisters, Agatha, Beatrice, Irma and Elizabeth.

Francis toiled in his childhood on the farm of his parents Frank and Elizabeth (Wolken) Lickteig outside of Greeley. He spent many an hour behind a walking plow powered by a pair of mules, milked cows and collected eggs from a chicken coop. Expansion of the family, which topped out at ten children, necessitated expansion of the farm. Capital for the land came from local non-bank sources who had capital to lend.

The 1930s brought pestilence and drought. The years 1934 and 1936 were particularly brutal. His summation of that period: "We were poor but didn't know it."

The 1940s saw the war years. He helped build the still-standing St. John the Baptist church in Greeley by helping to haul rock out of a nearby hillside. The church was consecrated in 1944.

At the age of 22, Francis was the heir apparent of the farm as the last remaining male heir who resided there. He declined that role and ventured into the wider world.

In the last half of the 1940s, he worked on the farms of his older brothers Raymond and Dominic, who had transplanted themselves in Iowa. Later, he opened and operated a hammer mill service at Greeley for a time with his brother-in-law Jim Gilner.

In the early 1950s, he worked for John Woods & Sons Elevator company in Des Moines, Iowa. He helped build the Ralston Purina grain elevator at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that still stands. On one of his runs to Kansas City for the company, he met Mildred Miller at the Livestock Exchange Building where she worked. They married on Thanksgiving 1953, which was the only day both could swing a day off. They returned to work the next day. He worked on the assembly line at the General Motors plant in Fairfax after the flood of 1952.

In the mid-1950s the couple eventually settled into a home just west of 87th Terrace and Wornall Road. In a few years, Francis earned a degree in business by attending night school at Rockhurst College. Lee Cissel, an attorney who taught business law, was a favorite lecturer and heavy influence.

In 1957, he began working as a union meat cutter. Except for one early assignment, he worked in stores operated by the Milgram's grocery chain for the next twenty-seven years.

In 1962, the family moved to Shawnee in a home near 67th Street and I-35. He had many neighborhood friends.

Later in the 1960s and in the early 1970s, Francis walked a picket line with his brothers and sisters of the local of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Association, AFL-CIO. He served on the contract committee.

In the late 1970s, Jerry Mook approached Francis about serving on a team to advance Catholic men through the Knights of Columbus. There ensued about twenty-five years of travel to the cities, suburbs and burgs of Kansas usually on Sundays. The team satisfied two of his itches: to travel and to expand the Knights of Columbus.

His father Frank ingrained into Francis a need to work the land. After moving to Shawnee, Francis spotted an idle piece of ground near Turkey Creek at the foot of the hill on 67th Street. He worked the ground in memory of his Dad. For Francis and Mildred, children of the Great Depression, the garden was a source of healthy vegetables for the dinner table and give-a-ways to others.

The 1980s brought further changes to the economy. Francis turned 65 in 1988. For someone born before the enactment of Social Security, the idea of retirement much less retirement at an arbitrary age was anathema. The grocery business evolved. Milgram's met its demise.

After Milgram's, Francis worked for an auto auction in Lee's Summit driving vehicles to dealers as distant as Dallas and Detroit. He later worked as a school bus driver and para aide on the buses. He last worked in August, 2014, at age 91.

He was not a materialist. Work had meaning beyond the money: Purpose, discipline and camaraderie were galvanizing parts of the work week.

About the nickname: Whitey - because of the color of his hair.

A great nephew, Scott Lickteig, recently asked Francis who was his favorite cousin. He said he had no favorite. They all had different ways, but they were equal in his eyes.

The wake will be Thursday from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. with a rosary at 8 p.m. at Amos Family Funeral Home in Shawnee, Kansas. The funeral mass will be Friday at 10:30 a.m. at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Shawnee, Kansas with burial to follow at Shawnee Memory Gardens in Shawnee, Kansas. The family hopes that those who loved, cared about him or enjoyed his friendship can attend. Freud said humans need love and work. Francis had both in abundance.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages contributions to the Good Shepherd council of the Knights of Columbus.