Lois Caffyn

Lois Pauline Caffyn, age 95, Topeka, Kansas, died Thursday, June 12, 2008 at Aldersgate Village.

Miss Caffyn was a retired educator. She taught English and foreign language as Extension courses for the University of Kansas at Atchison County Community High School (Effingham) in 1937; and taught in the public high schools of Kansas in Summerfield from 1937 to 1941, in Plainville from 1941 to 1944, and in Dodge City Senior High from 1944 to 1957. She was a statewide language-arts specialist in the State Department of Education, serving Kansas elementary and secondary schools from 1957 until her retirement in 1978. She was an active member in the Kansas Association of teachers of English (KATE), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the National Association of State English and reading Specialists (ASEARS), the Kansas Association for Supervision ad Curriculum Development (KASCD), the National ASCD, and Kansas Women in School Administration.

She wrote and published professional material for the State Department of Education, the magazines of NCTE and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), and wrote a regular column for the KATE Bulletin for about twelve years.

Miss Caffyn was a member of the First United Methodist Church in Topeka, where she took part in the Employed Women's Group, and Wesleyan Service Guild.

She was also a member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), where she chaired a Creative Writing group of the Topeka Branch from 1967 to 1977. Her poetry appeared in the National Poetry Anthology 1957, Inscape (now from Washburn University), the Kansas Quarterly (Kansas State University), the KATE Bulletin, the AAUW Newsletter, and the Memorial Hospital Kansas Art Corridor.

Miss Caffyn was born May 8, 1913 in Iowa Falls, Iowa, the third and youngest child of the Reverend Jesse Roland and Lillian May Dickman Caffyn. She grew up in Methodist parsonages in Gloversville, NY; Wichita, Newton, and Arkansas City, KS; Blackwell, Norman, Copan, and Dewey, OK. She was graduated from Norman High School in 1930 as a National Honor Society student, and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1935 and a master's degree from KU in 1944. She studied voice at the University of Oklahoma, Kansas University, the Lamont School of Music in Denver, and privately in Bartlesville, OK. She pursued further academic studies in summers at KU, the Territorial University at Fairbanks, Alaska, Denver University, Kansas State Universities at Pittsburg and Emporia, and Western Illinois University. She attended six writers' conferences.

For her relatives and friends, she assembled four booklets of her poems, entitled Through a Glass Darkly, Christmas Plus, Crumbs, and Unfinished Business.

Miss Caffyn is survived by two nephews: Jon Michael Reid, Sr., of Houston, Texas, and Roland Dale Hixson, Grand Junction, Colorado, and their respective families.

A Memorial Service will be at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 in Wesley Hall at Aldersgate Village. A Graveside service will follow at Clinton Cemetery, Douglas County, KS at 4:00 p.m.

Memorial contributions may be made to Aldersgate Good Samaritan Fund, Aldersgate Village, 7220 S.W. Asbury Drive, Topeka, Kan., 66614.