A to Z April Challenge: K is for Kibler

My theme for the A to Z April Challenge is “In-Laws and Out-Laws – Friends of the Family.”  I will be researching friends, colleagues, neighbors - those people who came and went touching my family’s lives in both small and large ways. 

is for Kibler.  Constance Margaret Kibler.  She was one of my grandaunt Violetta Davis Ryan’s friends from college.  Actually, they were probably neighborhood friends as well.  Constance was born in 1903 and grew up just three streets away from Violetta in Shenandoah, Virginia.  Constance was the only child of Benton and Minnie Good Kibler. 

Both Constance and Violetta attended the Harrisonburg Teachers College and graduated with the 2-year diploma in 1923, which at the time entitled them to teach anywhere for seven years before having to be recertified.  Like Violetta and Argene Louise Lauck, Constance was a member of the High School Club for students seeking certification in secondary education.

Constance Margaret Kibler
scanned from School Ma'am 1923

The description under Constance’s graduation picture in the yearbook reveals much about her personality.  Her “inscrutable expression,” her kindness and her “love of chatter” peppered with “uncutting sarcasm” make her seem likeable without being overly sweet. 

Constance

Collecting signatures in the yearbook is a long-standing tradition.  Violetta made a point of collecting just these two.  All that room in the yearbook, yet Constance squeezed her message and signature below someone else’s.  And on an ad page, no less.   

Scanned from The School Ma'am 1923

I wonder if Constance ever put that teaching degree to work.  If so, it was for only a short time.

In 1925, Constance married Harold W. Bryan, an electrical engineer from Pennsylvania.  I wonder how they met.  What brought him to Virginia or what took her to Pennsylvania?  At any rate, in the census records for 1930 and 1940, Constance was not employed.  Meanwhile back in Shenandoah, Virginia, the Kiblers were renting out Constance’s bedroom to lodgers. 

Apparently Constance and Harold did not have children.

At least by 1976, the Bryans were residents of Deerfield Beach, Florida.  That is where Minnie Kibler, Constance’s mother, was living when she died. Constance died five years later on July 29, 1981.  Both are buried in Pompano Beach, Florida, along with Harold who joined them ten years later.

Photo courtesy of Tom Carroll at Findagrave.com

Don’t keep your knickers in a knot; put the kibosh on that kerfuffle; keep a hold on your kinkajou and kangaroo; kick up your kilt; knit a kerchief.  But whatever you do, key up for the A to Z April Challenge. 

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.