Helen Kling passed away at the age of 98 on March 12, 2014. Bertha Helen Bartlett Kling was born in Butler March 11, 1916, the second daughter of Roy and Daisy (Seelinger) Bartlett.
She graduated from Butler High School and received her degree from Columbia College (formerly Christian College). After college she returned to Butler and worked for the Duvall Investment Company. On May 25, 1943, she married Emmett J. Kling, Jr. They had two daughters, Melissa and Deborah.
When their children were in school, she returned to college at CMU to become a teacher at the Passaic State School for the Mentally Handicapped. After taking additional courses at the University of Missouri and University of Arkansas, she became program director at West Central Missouri Rural Development Corporation administering programs in women’s health, senior citizens and home health. She retired at age 80. Deciding she was too young to quit, she opened a retail garden shop, Parlor and Porch in Butler which she continued for 12 years until her eyesight failed. She continued her work on the Board of Trustees for Poplar Heights Farm guiding its development.
Helen remembers having a wonderful childhood. She had four sisters: Agnes Magdalene Bishop, Ruth Esther Rice, Maude Louise Bartlett and Royce Johannes Bartlett, each one having a name from her mother’s sisters. The family would travel during the summer going to the Gulf Coast, Colorado and Lake Village. During the War, her sisters all came home to Butler to stay while their husbands were on duty. Trips to Poplar Heights Farm were frequent - picking apples, peaches and plums, fishing, Easter egg hunts, gathering walnuts and chestnuts, picnics and bonfires. Her mother and later Helen kept the work going at Poplar Heights Farm after her grandfather, John Seelinger died, until the property went into the JSJ Foundation.
Helen was active in Girl Scouts when her daughters were growing up, serving as troop leader and Vice President of the Pioneer Trails Council. She served as Vice President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Jones-Seelinger-Johannes Family Foundation, President and then Secretary of the Marais des Cygnes Society foundation, was a member of the Ladies of Wednesday Coterie, and the last member of the Jinx Club. She loved crossword puzzles and bridge.
Helen was preceded in death by her husband in 1983 and four sisters. She is survived by her two daughters: Melissa Phillips and husband Paul of Butler, and Deborah Casolari and husband Bruce of Kansas City; three grandchildren, P. Brian Phillips, Jr. of Butler, Faye Jackson of San Antonio, Texas, and Celia Casolari of Kansas City; three great-grandchildren, Elizabeth and Thomas Jackson of San Antonio and Hayden Phillips of Butler.
