Lela Maxine Bruner

Lela Maxine Nester Bruner, 88, passed away on Monday, April 7, from natural causes with her family by her side.

Maxine was born on February 8, 1937, the fourth of eight children to John Nester and Arma Francis Nester in Elkhart, Kansas. Maxine’s life started humbly on a farm in southwestern Kansas, but it was rich with love, faith and adventure.

Maxine started elementary school as a 4-year-old in first grade in a one-room schoolhouse near Elkhart. The teacher wanted a first grader, and she said Maxine was smart enough to skip kindergarten. Maxine enjoyed telling stories of her early childhood, remembering playing outside with spoons and spools to build cities in the dirt and how they saved sugar all year long to make candy for Christmas.

When Maxine was 12, her family moved to eastern Kansas, where they ran the Richmond (Kan.) Café, and lived in a two-room house behind the café. Maxine recalled sharing a bed with three of her siblings and working hard in the kitchen and as a waitress. The Nester family then moved to Ottawa and ran a filling station before returning to Elkhart, leaving behind two daughters who married eastern Kansas men.

In 1952, Maxine met the love of her life, Wayne Bruner, at a dance in Ottawa. They were married on April 6, 1953, and later welcomed a son, Steven Allen. Brenda Lee and Kathleen Louise were born a few years later. In 1961, Wayne and Maxine moved their family from Ottawa to a farm near Rantoul where Maxine enjoyed her large garden, raising chickens and a few purebred Hereford cattle.

Maxine was a woman of many talents, sewing clothes, cooking salsa and decorating cakes, all of which she did to help make ends meet when times were hard. Maxine worked a variety of jobs including sewing jeans and other apparel in the H D Lee factory in Ottawa, selling fabric and managing the Albright’s fabric store and housekeeping at Cedarhouse Nursing Home. When she was 40, she decided to get her GED and take some college classes, after which she worked as a day manager at the Humiston-Spratt Liquor Store in Princeton and then as a clerk for the City of Olathe Water Department before she retired.

Maxine and Wayne were members of the Ruhamah Baptist Church near Rantoul. They spent many years serving the church and taking children and grandchildren to services. They later joined the Green Valley Baptist Church.

Maxine loved adventure; she and Wayne took many family trips across the United States, collecting silver souvenir spoons in each state. When she was a young wife, Maxine enjoyed watching Wayne race cars on Kansas dirt tracks and raced in the powderpuff races, which she won. As a grandma, Maxine enjoyed camping in the pickup camper and fishing with Wayne and their grandchildren.

Grandchildren, great grandchildren and her great-great granddaughter were the light of Maxine’s life. She taught her grandchildren how to sew, cook sausage gravy and biscuits, about birdwatching and local history. Trips to the John Brown State Park in Osawatomie were some of her favorite trips with her grandchildren. She loved visits with her great grandchildren and great-great granddaughter, playing cards and Yahtzee and telling her childhood stories.

Maxine is preceded in death by her parents; husband Wayne; brothers Donald, Bill and Everett; sisters Helen, Evelyn, Wanda, Geneva and Vera; and grandsons Donald and Daniel Damron.

She is survived by her brother Ronald Nester of Kansas City; sister Lynn Nester Whisennand, of Topeka; son Steven (Bozena) Bruner of Basehor, Kansas; daughter Brenda Reisinger of Las Cruces, NM; daughter Kathleen (Dean) Spratt of Rantoul; grandchildren Dori (Ernie) Workman of Osawatomie, Shannon (Shane) Ruckman of Lewistown, Mont., Levi (Lorena) Spratt, and Raven Spratt of Rantoul; great grandchildren Brookelynn, Mylee, and Andrew Ruckman, Kadence (Cyrus) Damron-Tarango, Larissa and Laryn Spratt, and Bodhi Archer, and great-great granddaughter Caelynn Ferdinand.

Visitation will be held 5 to 7pm, Monday, April 14, 2025, at Dengel & Son Mortuary, Ottawa, Memorial Graveside Services will be held 11am, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, at Ruhamah Cemetery near Rantoul.

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