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Obituary for Freda Soulis Kyle

Freda Soulis Kyle, 94, a resident of Mission, Kansas passed away peacefully on June 20th, 2024 at home with family by her side. Born in 1930 in northeast Kansas City, to Denis Soulis, a Greek immigrant who came to the country with $1.50 in his pocket and a dream, and Cecilia Haney whose family moved to Kansas City from the south. Her mother died when Freda was 16, leaving behind eight children. She and her siblings helped raise the youngest children after their mother's death.

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Despite the challenges at home, she became an x-ray technician at Trinity Hospital. But her true love was art. In the 1960s she helped form an art league in Elmira, NY. A decade later, she and others established a community art center in Goldsboro, NC, fostering creativity in others. Carrying the same vibrant spirit forward, she established a gallery in Westport during the 1980s. In the 1990s, she was active in the Harrisonville Art League and after returning to the coast of North Carolina, she co-founded a cooperative gallery in Morehead City, still operating today.

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While watercolor landscapes of marshes and the rural countryside remained her artistic staples, she also captured idyllic scenes from her father's native Greece, a place she and many of her extended family members cherished through visits as adults. The family continues to have a relationship with their extended family in Greece.

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A mother of four, she instilled a love of art in her children, fostering their creativity and adventurousness from a young age. This passion extended beyond the home, as she generously enriched the lives of family, friends, and every community she touched through teaching and sharing her own paintings. The joy of "opa" infused her interactions with her grandchildren and great- grandchildren. Sewing projects, fig canning sessions, Christmas cookie baking marathons, coastal seafood dinners on the screened porch, and backyard seagull feeding frenzies—every shared activity became a testament to her infectious spirit.

Freda was predeceased by her husband, Frank "Kenneth" Kyle, and four brothers, Connie Soulis, Tony Soulis, Jim Soulis, and Sam Soulis. She leaves behind a legacy of love in her sisters, Annie DeMarea and Marie Soulis, her brother John Soulis, her four children, Vicki Zasadny, Ted Kyle, Kathy Kyle, and John Kyle, along with numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren and nieces and nephews.

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Services will be held on July 9 at 11 at Southminster Presbyterian Church.

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This obituary is protected by copyright by Alden Harrington Funeral Home. Proudly Serving the Communities of Bonner Springs, Lake of the Forest, Lake Quivira, Basehor, Shawnee, Edwardsville, Kansas City, Tonganoxie, DeSoto, Lansing, Piper, Linwood, Monticello, Shawnee Mission, Mission, Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Johnson, Douglas, Fairmont, Bethel, and Ledgends. Alden Harrington Funeral Home is located in the state of Kansas, United States.

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