Rebecca Browning Obituary

Rebecca Anne (Hemphill) Browning passed on to be part of nature on Wednesday, October 2, 2019. She was born July 16, 1954, the daughter of Herschel W. and Anne E. (Kelley) Hemphill (both deceased).

She attended Vinland Elementary School and graduated from Baldwin High School in 1972.

On June 16, 1973 she married Rockie Charles Browning of Lawrence, KS. He survives of the home.

Rebecca, also known as Becky, worked briefly at All Star Dairy in Lawrence, Sears in Ottawa, Maupintour Travel in Lawrence and Lawrence Public Schools from 1994 to 2016. Her favorite part of her secretarial career was at Free State High School helping the counseling staff and students.

Survivors include her daughter Amber Walckner (Wade), Grandchildren Sophia and Silas Walckner and son Ryan Browning all of Lawrence; a brother James Hemphill (Connie) of Tucson, Arizona and Howard Hemphill (Elizabeth) of Baldwin City, as well as cousins Byron Strom (Becky), Des Moines, Iowa and Kathy Renes (Gertjan), The Netherlands as well as all their children and grandchildren and an Uncle, Malcolm Strom of Dwight, Kansas.

Becky loved spending time with her family and enjoying nature. In 2006 she and Rockie moved back to the family home place, "Bittersweet Farm", south of Vinland and homesteaded in 1866. Her passion became exploring the woods in spring, identifying wild flowers and digging in the family dumpsite and surrounding barnyard area to find old pharmacy bottles and other relics that had been discarded by her ancestors over the years. Her family will scatter her ashes in the woods where she loved to walk.

A visitation with the family will be 5:00-7:00 p.m. Monday, October 7, 2019 at Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home, and a celebration of life will be announced at a later date.

Becky would like to thank her family for all of their love and support through this journey. She would also like to thank her many friends whom she considered her "Band of Angels" because they seemed to know intuitively when she needed a phone call, card or an invitation to coffee or lunch.

The family suggests memorials to be made to the Lawrence Boys and Girls Club, the Stony Point Cemetery Association or Lawrence Memorial Hospital Endowment Association's Catch a Break program, sent in care of Rumsey-Yost funeral home.

Condolences may be sent at rumsey-yost.com.