Loretta 'Gail' Farr

Loretta 'Gail' Farr

July 14, 1925 - May 7, 2013

KEARNEY, Nebraska -- Loretta "Gail" Farr, 87, of Kearney died Tuesday, May 7, 2013, at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney.

Funeral services will be Monday at 10 a.m. at Horner Lieske McBride & Kuhl Funeral and Cremation Services in Kearney. Rev. Dean Pofahl will officiate and burial will be at the Kearney Cemetery. Visitation is planned Sunday from 5 7 p.m. or prior to services Monday at the Funeral Home. Memorials are suggested to the Salvation Army. Please visit to leave a message of condolence, tribute or memory. Horner Lieske McBride & Kuhl Funeral and Cremation Services in Kearney are in charge of arrangements.

Gail was born July 14, 1925, in Indianola, Nebraska, to Francis and Lily (Wood) Madden. On June 1, 1945 she married Emert Farr in Norton, Kansas.

Gail, as she was know by all, attended grade school and high school at Havana, north of Indianola. The couple farmed 13 miles north of Cambridge, Nebraska. In 1958, they moved to Boulder, Colorado, where they operated the Boulder Cottage Court until 1962. They moved to Stockton, Kansas, where they lived for two years until moving to Kearney in 1964. They purchased the El Rancho Trailer court then owned and operated the Ideal Motel until retiring in 1976. Retirement didn't suit Gail and she went to work in the kitchen at Kearney High School and was there for 30 years and retired in 2006.

Gail's compassion for life was exemplified in her never-ending energy to create a better day for a friend or relative. She never missed a birthday card with a warm wish and a couple of dollars to every child and grandchild and great grandchild. A visiting friend or relative never left her house without a jar of homemade jelly for their journey home. Her summer days were spent in her back yard with planting and maintaining flowers, canning juices from choke cherries or wild plums for making jelly in the fall and winter months.

She was a past member of the Kearney Eagles Lodge Auxiliary.

Surviving relatives include her son, Tom and wife Nita of Wamego, Kansas; daughters, Myrna Farr of Grand Island, Nebraska and Brenda Sheldon of Kearney; grandchildren, Ty, Kelly, Jared, Mathew, Nicole and Tara, 10 great grandchildren; brother, William Madden and wife, Ann of Alpine, California; sister, Denelda "Dennie" Schermerhorn and husband, Bernie of San Diego, California; sisters-in-law, Lillian Sayer of Cambridge and Mildred Farr of Kearney.

Gail Farr was preceded in death by her husband in 1989, sisters, Arline Sorensen and Alice Walker and brother, James Madden.

Horner Lieske McBride & Kuhl Funeral and Cremation Services in Kearney is in charge of arrangements.