Melba Jeanne Hightower Schwab Walker Smith was born in Kansas City, Missouri on September 24, 1928 to Eloise Juanita Burke Hightower of Midway, Texas and Raleigh James Hightower of Madisonville, Texas. She was their only child. As a young girl, Melba moved with her parents first to Huntington, West Virginia where she began school then to Buffalo, New York before returning to Kansas City and graduating from Southeast High School at the age of 16. She continued her formal education at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri as a member of the class of 1949, majoring in both English and History. From there she went to California where she lived a short while before once, again, going back to the Kansas City metropolitan area, residing there for the rest of her life.

While it was not the norm for women at the time, straight out of college Melba entered the business world, taking a job with Ford Motor Company in their secretarial pool. She quickly worked her way up the ladder, ending her corporate career as their Greater Kansas City Public Relations Director. An accomplished entrepreneur and owner of many small businesses thereafter, Melba was truly ahead of her time and continued to help pave the way for women in business as sole proprietors and small business owners both domestically and internationally. She loved to work and was a very hard worker. Over the years, she was involved with and started many businesses, the first being Rebonda Enterprises and the last being Lilliputs, etcie. Long before providing personal shopping services for clients was commonplace, she was doing so out of her home. Her specialty was buying works of art for her clients both for their own pleasure and for investment purposes. This venture was most certainly one of Melba’s favorite endeavors as her true passion was art. She appreciated it and supported it always and was, herself, an accomplished artist in a multitude of areas, forms, and mediums. This led her to help establish the Art Ministry at The Village United Presbyterian where she was a member most of her adult life. Partly because of this zeal for art, she loved to travel the world, frequently taking trips abroad, combining business with pleasure as much as possible.

Having spent a lot of time tracing the history of her parents and their families back many generations, Melba learned a great deal about her ancestors. She was able to prove her lineage and became active in both the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). She was very proud of her heritage.

During her lifetime, Melba was married three times. Her husbands were: Theodore William Schwab III, Huffman Walker, and Bryan Junior Smith. Born to the union of Melba and Huffman was one daughter, Rebecca Anne Walker Farrar. Rebecca is married to Jeffrey Guy Farrar and they reside in Robinson, Kansas. From a previous marriage of Huffman’s, he and Melba also raised together two more children, Huffman Reed Walker currently living in Leawood, Kansas with his wife, Michele Louise Joy Walker, and Rhonda Jean Walker of Pompano Beach, Florida, her husband being Timothy Paul O’Neill. In addition to Reed, Rhonda, and Rebecca, the three R’s as they were known, and their spouses, Melba leaves behind her beloved grandson, Landon Burke Farrar and his wife, Taylor Elizabeth Rahe Farrar, of Prairie Village, Kansas. Also surviving her are many cousins, some very dear friends, and one extremely special person, Stacie Carter, whom she loved as a daughter, and who helped the family immensely over the years by providing Melba with companionship, comfort, care, and most importantly, love.

Seemingly very much at peace when she passed away in Olathe, Kansas on December 31, 2019, Melba believed wholeheartedly that she was on her way to meet her maker, reunite with her parents, and join other loved ones, both family and friends, that had passed before her. As per her wishes, she was cremated and her remains were set to rest in a family plot between her father’s and her mother’s gravesites at Midway Cemetery in Midway, Texas. Although she never lived in Texas, it was always “home” to her, as that’s where her kinfolk were from and most still lived. She never missed an opportunity to go to Texas to visit family and longed to get back there between trips.