Obituaries

At 97, W. Laurel Campbell Browning could still vividly recall the hours-long trips in the early 1930s, sitting beside her older brother, Roland, in the cab of a freight truck, bumping along the winding rural gravel and dirt roads from their home at Leavenworth, Kansas, to Meriden, where the driver would drop off the two children at their grandparents’ farm for an extended visit.

She had been born on January 12, 1929, in Williamstown, southeast of Meriden, but the family soon relocated twice in the Leavenworth area as her parents labored to support their growing household. Laurel’s father, Ros C. Campbell, and twin uncles, Arch and Art, operated an automotive repair and tire shop in Leavenworth, and Laurel’s mother, C. Gladys Campbell, took advantage of the shop’s connections with another family’s trucking business to arrange free trips for little Laurel and Roland to Meriden.

Laurel’s life always was enriched with family nearby. The Campbells finally settled at the grandparents’ farm after Laurel’s grandfather was killed in a steam tractor accident. Laurel’s father farmed while Laurel’s mother taught at a country school. Laurel, her brother, older sister Virginia, and younger sisters Helene, Shirley, and Claire, together had a routine of farm chores to complete before and after school. Laurel attended school in Meriden with Helene and Shirley, graduating from Meriden High School in 1946. She and Helene then entered Kansas State College together. Laurel graduated with a bachelor’s degree in home economics and journalism in 1953, and she and sister Shirley headed to Omaha, Nebraska, where Laurel had been hired as a reporter in the Women’s Department at The Omaha World Herald.

When studying at Kansas State, Laurel had met fellow journalism major and World War II veteran Everett Browning, but their dating was interrupted by Everett’s struggles to finance college on GI Bill payments. By 1954, however, Everett held a stable position at a Central Nebraska newspaper, and when Everett heard through a shared acquaintance that Laurel was in Omaha, he moved to a job at an Omaha stock yard industry newspaper, and Laurel and Everett’s romance relaunched. They married on May 7, 1955, at the Kansas State College Chapel, setting off on their companion journey of the next 68 years.

Their first son, Brian, was born in 1956, and second son, Gene, in 1958. They had moved to Manhattan, Kansas, for Everett’s new work in agriculture extension services. After five years in Manhattan, they moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, and then to Las Cruces, New Mexico. Laurel’s responsibility had been running the household with two young children because Everett frequently traveled for the extension service work, but in New Mexico, Everett developed ulcers from job pressures, and Laurel stepped into assisting with the family's financial support. She entered New Mexico State University to earn teacher certification and a Master of Arts in Teaching, and started work as a grade school teacher. In 1969, the family decided to move to Peru, Nebraska. Laurel began teaching fourth graders at Peru Elementary School. She would continue there for the next 20 years, retiring in 1989.

The family frequently took tent-camping trips. In later years, Laurel and Everett upgraded to Airstream trailer camping, which they continued into their 80s, the last extended campout as volunteers at Padre Island National Seashore in Corpus Christi, Texas. Laurel loved teaching young children, especially her own children and grandchildren. She took joy in playing the piano and continued to sound out songs when her sight faded. Laurel was an active member of the Peru chapters of PEO and Order of Eastern Star for decades, and briefly the San Marcos, Texas, PEO chapter. She relished attending the book discussions at the Peru Literary Ladies meetings. She and Everett were avid travelers, making multiple trips to Canada, as well as to Scotland, England, and Taiwan.

In 2022, Laurel and Everett moved to San Marcos, Texas, to be near their son Gene. Laurel loved to have family around but also was fiercely independent. When cancer took Everett’s life in early 2023, Laurel, who was legally blind from macular degeneration and needed a walker to get around, insisted on living by herself in their apartment. She became a student of enabling technology. She learned to use an audio cartridge reading machine and voraciously listened to a steady stream of biographies, travel books, and detective novels. She also quickly adjusted to giving voice commands to an artificial intelligence speaker her son introduced to her, calling up her favorite 1940s songs, checking the time or news, or making internet calls. And she courageously memorized the path outside to her neighbor JoAnn’s apartment, where they would have long chats. She continued with only minimal support from her son until late 2025, when she moved to assisted living, where she would remain until her quiet passing during a mid-morning nap on June 3, 2026.

Laurel is survived by son Gene and Gene's wife Shiang Shiang Chen; grandchildren Warren and Pajia from son Gene and Shiang Shiang’s union; Amelia, Lillian, Sam, and Madeline from son Brian and Mary Kay Reser’s union; and great-granddaughter, Rhea Hudson Browning, from Lillian and Cassio Hudson’s union; brother-in-law John Bowser (widower of Shirley), and sister-in-law, Jan Campbell (widow of Roland), and many nieces, nephews, and great-nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents, Roscoe and Gladys; her husband, Everett, her eldest son, Brian, and Brian's wife, Mary Kay Reser; her sister Virginia Ludy and husband John, sister Helene Hayward and husband Jack, sister Shirley Bowser and first husband John White, sister Claire McClure and husband David, and brother, Roland, and first wife, Dorothy.

Memorial and graveside service arrangements are pending. Laurel’s urn will join Everett’s at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Section 59, Grave 960.