Funeral services for Charlotte Smith Bruey, 85, Lawrence, were held Wednesday, Dec. 14 in Caldwell, with burial at Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Bluff City.
She died Friday, Dec. 9, 2011, in Lawrence.
She was born Feb. 1, 1926, in Terre Haute, Ind., the daughter of Joseph Lansford Coakley Smith and Reba Schulmeyer Smith.
She attended Glenn elementary and high schools, and graduated in 1944. She attended the St. Louis Institute of Music from 1944 to 1948, and she received her master’s degree in music from Indiana State University in 1951.
Mrs. Bruey was a pianist and piano teacher, and was also an orchestral musician in the Wichita Symphony and St. Louis Philharmonic. She played the double bass.
She won the State and National High School Contest in Michigan at the age of 15, and she won the Indiana state contest in 1941 and 1944. She was one of six Young Artists’ winners with the St. Louis Symphony in 1947.
She married Robert Bruey on Dec. 22, 1951, in Caldwell. He survives.
Other survivors include three daughters, Lou Ann and Randy Gebhards, Lawrence, Patty and Mickey Tidwell, Lakeland, Fla., and Shirley and Jim Sweetman, Castro Valley, Calif.; a brother, Norman and Charlotte Smith, Rantoul, Ill.; and five grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials to the Alzheimer’s Association’s Central and Western Kansas Offices, 347 S. Laura, Wichita, KS 67211.