Yesterday, while I was making notes for which articles here at Graham Ancestry would need to be updated with data from the forthcoming 1940 census, I decided to do some more digging in regards to Irene Polk.

You may recall from my article on Nona Elizabeth Graham that Nona has sometimes been erroneously recorded in family trees with the middle name of Irene. Nona’s son DJ Lathum informed me that following Nona’s passing, his father Frankie Lathum married a widow named Irene Jordan, née Polk. I believe that is where the confusion over Nona’s middle name originated – a mix up of Frankie’s two wives. A search at Ancestry.com revealed that following Frankie’s death, Irene married again, this time to Charles Bruner of Missouri. On a hunch I searched for “Irene Bruner” at Google and the second result turned out to be her obituary, reprinted here from the Sikeston Standard Democrat.

Irene Bruner

Thursday, February 27, 2003
Sikeston Standard Democrat

MATTHEWS – Irene Bruner, 89, died at 4:26 p.m. Feb. 25, 2003, at Missouri Delta Medical Center.

Born Jan. 14, 1914, in Center Ridge, Ark., daughter of the late Alvin and May Oliger Polk, she was a member of the Church of Christ in Matthews.

In 1930, she married James Thomas Jordan who preceded her in death in 1951. She married Frankie Lathum in 1954, and he died in 1966. She and Charles Bruner were married March 9, 1972, in New Madrid, and he died on July 29, 1990.

She was also preceded in death by one son, Thomas Hoover Jordan; two daughters, Reba Lee Davis and Barbara Van Dolah; one stepson, William "Bill" Bruner Sr.; one grandson, Jerry Edington; one stepgrandson, William "Bill" Bruner Jr.; and three brothers and two sisters.

Survivors include: one daughter, Ruby Mae Silvers of Matthews; six stepsons, D.J. Lathum of Germantown, Tenn., Phillip Bruner of California, Mike Bruner and Ed Bruner of Troy, Mo., and Jerry Bruner and John Bruner of Bentonville, Ark.; one son-in-law, David Van Dolah of Harper, Kan.; one sister, Marie Polk Dixon of Springfield, Ark.; and nine grandchildren, 12 stepgrandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, 10 stepgreat-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

Visitation is from 5 to 8 p.m. today at Nunnelee Funeral Chapel in Sikeston where services will be conducted at 10:30 a.m. Friday. Jimmy Colvett, minister of the Matthews Church of Christ, will officiate.

Burial will follow in Mounds Park Cemetery near Lilbourn.

Source

Sikeston Standard Democrat, 27 February 2003:  Obituary for Irene Bruner. Retrieved on 29 March 2012.

See Also

Find A Grave. Memorial for Irene Polk Bruner. Retrieved on 29 March 2012.