Talented Tuesday - Aunt Bruna McGuire

My family is from Ray County, Missouri, and everytime I get a chance I return there to visit. My grandmother knows how much I love family history so she suggested I make a visit to the Ray County Historical Society Museum. Never one to shirk a museum visit opportunity I happily obliged. The museum is set in the old Ray County Poor Farm and houses three floors of exhibits. As I made my tour I kept coming across one of my family names: McGuire. In one room there was a dress gifted to the museum by my great-great grandmother, Francis Wall McGuire, and in the hallway a painting of my Great-aunt Bruna McGuire. I'll admit that it was a bit disorientating to see things from my family in a museum...but how cool is that?

I especially enjoyed the painting of Bruna. It shows her standing next to her Model A Ford which she drove across the county for many years. I have heard many stories of Bruna and just know that we would have gotten along. She was by all accounts a feisty woman. The talent she is most remembered for is her writing. She, along with Betty Wall, compiled a book on the McGuire and Wall family lines. But how most people knew Bruna is through her weekly column printed in newspapers across Ray County to include the Richmond Missourian, the Richmond Conservator, the Hardin News and the Lexington News. I have read that many people that had moved away from the county would request subscriptions to the newspapers solely to read Bruna's column. She had a folksy tone to her writing and her in-depth knowledge of all the people in the area made her an expert at finding relevant connections to everyone.

Bruna also attended college and traveled around the country. In a time period when a woman's role was marriage and children, Bruna broke the mold. She would try anything and was extremely brave, especially when puttering around in her Model A with faster cars whizzing past her.

If you knew Bruna, you will always remember her. I only wish I could be so lucky.