Elvena Pherne Lee

Elvena Pherne (Caldwell) Lee was born on May 22, 1934 in the home near Ketchum, Oklahoma to Elwin Merrill Caldwell and Lera Fern (Mays) Caldwell, and passed away peacefully at Primrose Retirement Center in Stillwater on June 19, 2025. She attended Ketchum Seventh Day Adventist Church and school in her early childhood and was baptized at the age of twelve. She grew up during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl years and throughout childhood her parents moved from Oklahoma to California several times. Some of her earliest memories were traveling and sleeping on the road to California with her parents, grandmother and brothers, so her father could find work. Elvena was the oldest daughter of her siblings and much of her childhood was spent taking care of her younger brothers and sisters while her parents both worked. She eventually graduated from Stillwater High School, Stillwater, OK in 1952 and moved back to California to work at March Field Air Base Exchange in Riverside, California. There she met Air Force Staff Sergeant James Harold Lee and they were married in a small ceremony with just the minister and his wife in a wedding chapel in Winterhaven, California on December 16, 1961.

In 1963, James and Elvena left the Air Force and moved to James’s Northeast Iowa home to farm near Masonville, Iowa. The couple raised corn, soybeans, oats, alfalfa hay and operated a farrow to finish hog operation and dairy. Elvena excelled at helping her husband farm, raising a garden, canning, cooking, sewing, baking as well as milking cows, working hogs, driving a tractor, baling hay and raising AKC registered dogs. The couple raised three children on the farm and were active in the local United Methodist Church, Elvena served as the President of the local band mothers for Starmont School District and was active in the Eastern Star serving as Mother Adviser for the Lamont Rainbow Girls. In addition, Elvena worked at the Starmont School District school lunch program. In 1982, the couple moved to Oklahoma where they were employed with Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Elvena ran the OSU bakery and continued raising and selling AKC dogs and learned to cake decorate creating hundreds of specialty and wedding cakes for many years at OSU. When she retired from OSU she opened Cowboy’s Café and Bakery in Pawnee with her daughter. The restaurant served breakfast, lunch and dinner to a wide variety of customers and Elvena worked daily in the restaurant until it was sold in 2003. Elvena continued to bake and decorate cakes throughout her retirement years, cook, garden, assist her husband in his scale model toy business, raise AKC dogs and take care of grandchildren and great grandchildren. Her family remained the focal point of her life, as she enjoyed attending grandchildren’s activities and sporting events. The couple enjoyed a life-long devoted companionship celebrating sixty three years of married life together in December 2024.

She is survived by her husband, three children Brenda (Mark) Moehle of Edmond, OK, Lera (Mark) Featherstone of Morrison, OK, and James (Laura) Lee of Yale. Nine grandchildren, Amy (Caleb) Messerly, Joshua (Sara) Moehle, Ethan (Jessica) Schulze, Ryan (Jolynn) Schulze, Janet (Adam) Fortenberry, David (Kassie) Lee, Nicole (Braden) Nicholson, Logan Lee, Liam Lee and fourteen great grandchildren. Her brothers Von (Jo) Caldwell, Bartlesville, OK and Lloyd Caldwell, Tulsa, OK sisters Nelda Faye (Bill) Burton of Washington and Judy (Ken) Neal of California She is predeceased by her parents, son in law, John Schulze, brothers Don Caldwell, Harold Caldwell, infant brother and sister Delma LaVerle Root.

Funeral services will be held at Crossroads Community Church in Yale, Oklahoma with long time family friend, Pastor Michael Clark officiating and burial at Lawson Cemetery in Yale, Oklahoma with a dinner following at the church fellowship hall. Funeral arrangements are under the direction of Poteet Funeral Home, Pawnee, OK. The family extends a special thanks to Primrose Retirement Center, Stillwater, Oklahoma.