Palestine High School Alumni Association

08 / 08 / 1926  –  09 / 04 / 1994

Services for Mary Ellen Emmons Kestler, 68 of Palestine will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Bailey & Foster Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Bob Webb officiating.  Burial will be at the New Addition Annex Cemetery.  Mrs. Kestler died Saturday morning at Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler.  She was born August 8, 1926 in Temple to Johnnie Peyton and Ellen Ercelle Jenkins Emmons.  Mrs. Kestler was a 1943 graduate of Palestine High School and later graduated from Nixon Business College.

She was a charter member of the local chapter of the Legal Secretaries Association and the Palestine chapter of the Desk & Derrick Club.  She was a member of the Ladies Auxiliary of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No., 3907 for more than 30 years and served as treasurer  for 30 years and served as treasurer for six years.  Mrs. Kestler worked for the law firm of Sadler & Stillwell and the accounting firm of Don Hodges, Jr., CPS.  She also worked for Grady Jeans, owner of the Camp Hill Oil Co. for about 20 years before going to work for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice as a medical records technician at the Beto I unit in 1984.  She retired in June, 1992.

She is survived by a daughter, Ellen Perry Lee; son, James Emmon “Bubba” Perry, both of Palestine; brother, Johnnie Lee Emmons, Chandler; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Pallbearers will be Jessie Rosier, Louis Emmons, Frank E. Wacha, Jr., Jeremiah Owens, Phil Owens and Matt Emmons.

Condolence calls will be received from 6 – 8 p.m. Monday at the funeral home.