Frances was born to Joseph Horton Hall and Viola Elizabeth Hall, who had 12 other children during their marriage. She was born on 11 Mar 1922 in Utica, Indiana, and raised there. Utica was, and is still, a small river town that has problems with flooding nearly every year to some degree, but this is a hearty breed that love where they live. In fact Utica (pronounced U-tee-kee) only seems to be growing. This is the kind of place where it takes a long time become a real member of the community.

Joe was also known as "Cap'n Joe," and he was a laborer in the area. At times he was a tennent farmer and a fisherman running trotlines in the Ohio River. Her mother, Viola, was something of a stay-at-home mother. She certainly had cause to be! For someone as small as she was, it's hard to imagine that she that many children. Joe's father, Zackriah Hall, lived and died in the area, too. Zack had moved to Utica from Kentucky sometime after the Civil War took his father, Thomas Hall.

Frances went to elementary school in Utica, along with her sibliings, but that's as far as she managed to get. This was a time when "book learnin'" wasn't prized when children were needed to be earning money to help the family survive. As her son, I can remember when and where she told me that she could no longer help me with my homework. She told me that I was now ahead of her, and she couldn't help. She did a great job at what she was able to do. I ended up getting six college degrees, and I wouldn't have if it wasn't for her help and her encouragement.

A very important thing happened that changed her life forever. She was in a horrible accident riding on a motorcycle as a teenager while on the Utica Pike. They thought she was going to die. She had pebbles embedded under her skin, as well as skin scraped off all over her body. They kept a pair of tweezers beside her bed to pick out the rocks as they came to the surface. Obviously, she survived, but a long lasting problem was that she could not have children.

As a young lady, and quite attractive, she met Owen Howard McKinney, who worked at Colgate Palmolive. They were eventually married on Valentine's Day, 14 Feb 1941, shortly before Mac headed into the US Army in the midst of WWII. During the years that Mac was in the South Pacific with the 38th Infantry Division, Frances spent her time back in Utica and Jeffersonville working at the local American Barge Line, which was and still is the largest inland boat and barge building facility in the United States. Her time was spent helping to build LST's. These were the landing craft used by the US Navy to deliver assault troops and equipment onto foreign beaches they were invading. They are like small barges with a front ramp that drops down to allow the troops to charge off onto the beaches.

When US Army Staff Sergeant McKinney returned home with his Bronze Star for heroism on the island of Luzon in the Philippine Islands, he went back to his job at the Colgate Palmolive Manufacturing Plant. He and Frances were finally able to get on with creating their own home in Jeffersonville near the plant. After awhile France's mind turned to wanting a child to complete the family. Since she could not have one, they turned to the local Clark County Welfare Department in Jeffersonville to see about getting a child through adoption.

After completing the lengthy and detailed application for an adoption, they had to wait until a potential candidate became available. This occurred on March 9, 1950, when a male child was born to a mother who felt that she could not handle raising a child. So she gave it up for adoption, and the McKinneys were contacted. They picked up the child a couple of days later. They had to keep the child for a year before he could be adopted, along with the Welfare Department making many visits to insure that they would make good parents. Finally, the year was over, and the Department recommended the adoption to take place. Finally, on March 17, 1951, in Clark Circuit Court in Jeffersonville, Frances and Owen had a new son, Owen Michael McKinney. From all indications, Frances prized this young child, and made it her life's work to give this boy all that she could. She was a stay-at-home mom from the time she got Owen Michael until she died.

During WWII, she worked long enough to qualify for a Social Security retirement check. She often said in her later years that she was waiting for age 65 to retire so that she could get that monthly check, and she almost made it. Unfortunately, a medical condition developed that prevented it.

A second young man came along in Frances' life that was just as important as Owen Michael was in her youth. That new young man was Sean Michael McKinney, the son of Owen Michael and Janice Elaine Wilson McKinney. He was born in 1975, and she just couldn't get enough of him!

Frances died of a bleeding aneurysm in her brain. The doctors indicated that she was probably born with it, and that it just started enlarging making the outer layer grow thinner and thinner until it finallly burst. She lasted about a month from the time that it started bleeding. She spent time in two hospitals in Jeffersonville and Louisville, and a nursing home in Jeffersonville. Eventually she was moved back to the Clark Memorial Hospital in Jeffersonville, where she passed away late in the afternoon with many family members at hand to include siblings.

As with most McKinneys and Halls in the Utica and Jeffersonville, E.M. Coots Funeral Home provided the undertaking services. Services were held at the Funeral Home under the direction of Rev. Ken Barker, who also provided a brief service at the grave site at Eastern Cemetery for the family.

Frances had another favorite story she liked to tell. Halls are typically buried in Utica, and McKinneys are buried at Walnut Ridge Cemetery. It was her joke to say that since there was one of each in her immediate family, they were going to be buried at Eastern, which was in between the other two cemeteries!

Family was always the most important aspect of Frances' life no matter what. She shared what she could with her extended family. She never turned anyone away, even at times when it created a hardship with her own immediate family and her relationship with her husband. She was always ready to be an arbitrator for whatever family feud that might develope, whether it was between her parents, her many siblings, or their children. Family was always the most important thing she believed in.

NOTE: Please forward any photos or stories you would like to add to this memorial to Frances. You can contact me via e-mail at [email protected]