Those closest to Charlene “Char” Byers remember her infectious laugh.
“We used to have so much fun in the office,” said former co-worker Kerry Patek, 55, of Festus. “We always went to lunch at the same time, and it never failed – she would always spill something down the front of her shirt, and we would laugh and laugh.
“She had given me some clothes, and I wore this beautiful blouse that had been hers to her funeral. At lunch afterward, I told everybody I felt like I ought to spill something on it in her memory. I could just hear that laugh.”
Mrs. Byers died Jan. 20 at age 75, following a battle with spinal stenosis and lung cancer. She was the longtime Festus city clerk (a position Kerry now holds), serving under seven mayors: Harold Oetting, Charles Earls, Joe Grohs, John Graham, Cathy Jokerst, Jack King and Gene Doyle.
Festus Police Chief Tim Lewis said she “knew every ordinance, and if she couldn’t pull it up off the top of her head, she knew where to find it.”
Mrs. Byers grew up in Crystal City and in 1960, married her high school sweetheart, Art Danback. They had a son and a daughter.
“They split up when I was 4, and we moved in with my grandmother in Crystal City,” said Janene Shelledy, 49.
The single mother worked a series of jobs, often two at once, to make ends meet for her little family and take care of her mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer.
She met Ray Byers when both worked at a company in Chesterfield, and the two were married in 1975.
The family moved to Festus and Mrs. Byers went to work for the city in 1976.
“She took to it right away,” Janene said. “She loved government stuff and was so gifted about it.”
She was very well organized, both at home and at City Hall, which then occupied a cramped, low-ceilinged space in the basement of the library building on Mill Street (now part of Comtrea).
“It was VERY close quarters,” Kerry said with a laugh. “We sold city stickers then, and people came in to pay taxes, so we’d always have people lined up out the door. But it was fun.”
Janene said her mother had a great method for dealing with people who had their feathers ruffled.
“She told me, ‘The more they yell, the calmer I get,’” Janene said. “By the time they left, they’d be saying, ‘Thanks so much, Char,’ real sweetly.”
Her position in the nerve center of the city gave her an insider’s view of everything that went on, but Mrs. Byers didn’t take advantage of her position.
“She never really got involved in the politics of things,” Kerry said. “She did her job, helped those around her and went on about her business.”
Kerry said Mrs. Byers was a friend as well as a mentor.
“I started there in 1982, and she kind of took me under her wing,” Kerry said. “Char pretty much taught me everything I know. She’d get frustrated at times, like anybody else, but she was always so good-hearted, and always willing to help anybody.”
She loved to shop, for herself and to buy gifts for others.
“I went over one day and there was this huge box,” Janene said. “She had bought me a steam cleaner! You wouldn’t believe the things she gave us.”
She was generous with her time and talents as well, and supportive to those in need.
She postponed her retirement following the death of Kerry’s daughter, Jessica, following a car crash in 2004.
“She stayed another year because she knew it would be tough on me,” Kerry said. “I think she knew I needed her.”
Mrs. Byers loved to sew, making dresses and doll clothes for her daughters and granddaughters.
She also loved to cook.
“You’d walk in the door and she’d say, ‘Eat something! I’ve got chili on the stove. You want a doughnut?’” Janene said.
Mrs. Byers suffered for the last few years with spinal stenosis.
“When she was caring for my stepdad, who died in 2014, she did a lot of lifting,” Janene said. “It just spiraled downward. She was in excruciating pain a lot of the time.”
She was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2017 and underwent two initial rounds of chemotherapy. The day after Thanksgiving, she fell and broke her back, and her last two rounds were delayed until after Christmas.
“She finished on Jan. 11, and she was weak and feeling bad,” her daughter said. “But that was typical.”
The family knew it was something more, though, when she started having trouble breathing and called 911. She had pneumonia and septicemia.
“She was in so much pain, it was pure agony for her,” Janene said. “Every so often, she would sit straight up and start talking about how somebody was going to get their water shut off, or about some ordinance. ‘Kerry will take care of it,’ we’d say, and she’d lay back down.”
At the end, the family opted to keep her comfortable, and she died with her children and grandchildren and her beloved sister, Caroline, nearby.
“She was ready. She was done fighting,” Janene said. “She loved to dance, and she said, ‘When I get to heaven, the first thing I’m going to do is dance the jitterbug.’”
Kerry placed a bottle of Mrs. Byers’ beloved Coke in her friend’s casket.
“I want to be like her,” she said. “She had such a zest for life.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.