Obituary of Crystal Fager

Crystal Agness (Hale) Fager was born on December 25, 1918, on a farm near Matheson, Colorado, the youngest of the four children of Agness (Bland) Hale and John Wesley Hale. Her mother was a school teacher and her father was a farmer. They moved to Simla, Colorado when she was in the second grade. By them her father worked on the railroad, filling in as a substitute foreman in Colorado and Kansas and was gone a lot. Crystal’s mother ran a creamery in Simla. Her father finally got a permanent foreman job and they moved to Dellale, Kansas. Crystal was in the fifth grade and, though living in town, she had to walk in one and a half miles to a country school. Her mother was a bad asthmatic and needed a higher altitude to be able to breathe better and so they moved whenever a foreman job opened up further west. Crystal was in Kanorado for the grades at North Jr. High and Main High (now William Jackson Palmer) for the tenth an eleventh grades. She had to take a year’s rest because of a heart condition and the school had too many stairs to climb. Crystal went back the next year and graduated in 1937. Crystal did a lot of singing in her high school years. She was a member of the Colorado Springs A Capella Choir for three years, sang over radio station KVOR for devotions every morning before going to school and sang with a young man at revival meetings around the state. She held the job of cook in a private home and sewed dresses for a lady, using different materials but just the one pattern the lady liked. Mother Hale did oil painting and Crystal enjoyed painting as well. One painting of bear cubs up a tree didn’t get sold because her father didn’t like that she had painted the roses and leaves on the frame ~ so it was kept. Crystal’s parents had moved to Flagler during this time and lived in the house that later was the Loren Plumb home. She took her first vacation at Christmas and birthday time, and went to Flagler for a visit. The first Sunday there she went to the Baptist Church where Rhynold Fager was the Sunday School Superintendent and song leader. He asked her to lunch and took her to his parents’ home, ten miles north of town. A week later they were engaged. After church on the first Sunday in March 1938, the minister told the congregation he had a surprise for them and Rhynold and Crystal came down the aisle and were the first couple to be married in the church. At that time, it was common to be married at home, at the parsonage or at the county clerk’s office. They celebrated their 65th anniversary just two months before his death in 2002. Their first daughter, Dolores, was born in July 1939, in Flagler. Rhynold later accepted a better paying job in Limon as a mechanic. When WWII was declared, he enlisted as a Jr. Airplane Mechanic at Hill Air Force Base at Ogden, Utah. At that time they were expecting their second child and when Donna was eight days old, Rhynold was called Ogden. When he found housing for them, Crystal and the girls moved there. Rhynold worked his way up to Sr. Aircraft Inspector and traveled all over the United States inspecting air bases. During this time Carol was born. Crystal’s mother died in 1944 and Rhynold’s mother died the next year. He was needed at home to help with the family so he resigned from his job and they moved back to Flagler in the fall of 1945 where Linda was born. His next to youngest sister, Hazel, then joined the family as a teenager. Years were spent working at the M & S Garage selling Chryslers, Plymouths and Dodges, running the M & S Motel for a short time, frying doughnuts for the café, working for Harris and Lina Jones at the City Café, driving school buses for 18 years and helping Rhynold with his Allis-Chalmers business. When Dolores was married, Crystal made the wedding dress, the two candle lighters’ dresses and two ring pillows within three weeks. At the last minute, the lady making Dolores’ wedding cake backed out, so Crystal made it and began a 50+ years career making and decoration cakes for all occasions. One cake went as far as Alabama for Linda’s wedding. Crystal and Rhynold, who sang many duets together and trios with Dolores. Crystal and Dolores san duets and trios with Donna. She sang for showers, weddings, funerals and entertainment all over this area. After the girls were on their own, Mom and Dad (Crytal and Rhynold) started serious travel on their 25th wedding anniversary with a trip to Hawaii. Their oldest grandson, Chuck Crisp, worked for them and ran their business while they were away. They traveled in 42 countries, all the states and were on 3 cruises. Their daughters have Crystal’s 18 grandchildren and she now has 50 great – grandchildren and 7 great-great grandchildren, with 2 on the way, plus Hazel and her family of five children and their families. At age 93 1/2 and with the help of Dolores, Crystal still lived in the house they bought in 1945. She put jigsaw puzzles together and did handwork like knitting or crocheting to help the time pass. Over the years she has made more than 150 beautiful afghans, sweaters, capes, scarves an baby afghans for family and friends. She still attends the church where she met and married Rhynold and enjoys visiting friends and having lunch at the Creighton Senior Center. Crystal compiled her life history in 2012. In May of 2014, she entered assisted living in Stratton and into the Lincoln Community Care Center on August 4, 2014 where she passed at noon on October 18th, 2014.