Barbara Kay Brown.........Age 76

VISITATION: 6-8pm Monday, July 27, 2015

SERVICE: 1:30 pm, Tuesday, July 28, 2015
All services at the Eddy-Birchard Funeral Home.

BURIAL: Osawatomie Cemetery, Osawatomie, Kansas.

MEMORIALS: Dean and Barbara Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Memorials may be sent in care of:
Eddy-Birchard Funeral Home
P.O. Box 430
Osawatomie, KS 66064

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Barbara Kay Brown age 76, died unexpectedly Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at her home.

Barbara was born March 27, 1939 in Enid, Oklahoma the second of three daughters born to Irvin Othel and Viola Belle Graham. She lived with her family on her grandparents’ wheat farm until the start of WWII. The family then moved to Wichita, Kansas so that her father could work for Boeing. , In 1945 her father bought a different wheat farm outside of Medford, Oklahoma where she lived until the end of high school. Barbara attended school in the same building from 1st grade through high school in Jefferson, Oklahoma. She graduated valedictorian of the class of 1957. She attended beauty school during the summer of her junior and senior years.

Growing up on a farm, Barbara had many responsibilities, she drove a tractor and combine, plowed fields, hauled wheat in a pick-up truck, and also assisted in taking care of the cattle, horses, chickens, and pigs. Barbara was involved in several other after school activities; she played basketball, was a majorette, and played clarinet in her school band. During high school, she worked at a diner in the nearby town of Pond Creek where she met her future husband, Dean Brown.

Barbara enjoyed beauty school but her true desire was to be an English teacher. After high school she moved to Enid. She finished beauty school and attended college in the fall at Phillips University as an English major for two years.

On April 12, 1959 Barbara married H. Dean Brown in Enid, Oklahoma they made their home in Stillwater, Oklahoma where Dean was attending Oklahoma State University. Barbara worked as a hair stylist while Dean finished school. After Dean graduated in 1961, they moved to Wellington, Kansas where Dean took a teaching position. Barbara was strictly a mother until after the birth of her 2nd child. In 1967 the family moved to Horton, Kansas. As Dean advanced in his teaching career the family moved to Eudora, Kansas and finally settled in Osawatomie in 1974.

Throughout this time their family was growing and they became the parents of three daughters: Teri, Michele and Jana Jo. Barbara continued as a hair stylist wherever they moved, often times with a shop in the house to be home with her daughters. In Osawatomie, Barbara worked at Mi Lady’s Salon, owned by Mabel Coffelt, for many years. She later opened up The Hair Shack on east Main Street and she retired in 1997.

After Barbara’s retirement in 1997 and her husband’s retirement as high school principal they bought an RV and a vacation home in Texas, where they stayed from January to late April every year. She enjoyed sewing, knitting, crocheting, as well as working in her flower garden. She was an avid reader and reading several books a week was not uncommon. Barbara was a wonderful baker and was always in the kitchen. She took pride in her pies baked from scratch. She taught her grandchildren how to make pies to carry on the tradition.

Barbara was a long time member of the First Presbyterian Church of Osawatomie, a former member of the Delta Epsilon Sorority, a member of the Faculty Wives, not to mention a member of several local bridge clubs, a pitch club, and a local book club.

She was preceded in death by her parents and her husband of fifty-three years on February 8, 2012.

Survivors include her daughters: Teri Kay (Brown) Auten of Osawatomie, Michele Deanne (Brown) Swartz of Springville, Iowa and Jana Jo Brown of Osawatomie. Two sisters: Joyce Green of Kechi, KS and Janice Bilyk of Hampton, VA. Six grandchildren: Ashley, Alyssa, Jakeb and Jared Auten, Anna and Lindsey Swartz and her favorite little buddy, her tiny Yorkie dog, “Tigger”, and many other family members and friends.