Georga Bray 1947-2011

BRAY ROCK HINKHOUSE

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 6/20/2011 at 15:45:55

Sioux City Journal
7 May 2011

CORRECTIONVILLE, Iowa -- Georga Bray, 64, of Lady Lake, Fla., formerly of Correctionville, passed away Sunday, May 1, 2011, at The Villages Hospice House in The Villages, Fla., following a brief battle with brain cancer.

Services will be 1:30 p.m. today at Salem Lutheran Church in rural Correctionville, with the the Rev. Bert Burwell A.i.M. officiating. Burial will be in Fairfield Cemetery (Rock Branch), rural Correctionville. Nicklas D. Jensen Funeral Home of Correctionville is in charge of arrangements.

Georga was born Feb. 22, 1947, in Kingsley, Iowa, to Hertha Emma (Rock) and Rudolph Frank Hinkhouse of rural Correctionville. She was baptized in Christ and later confirmed at Salem Lutheran Church, rural Correctionville. She grew up on the family farm with three sisters and two brothers, and enjoyed a large extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and many cousins living nearby. She spent most of her adult life living other places, but she returned home frequently and her heart remained in northwest Iowa. She graduated from Correctionville High School with the class of 1965. She attended the University of South Dakota and later graduated from the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

Georga was married to Thomas D. Bray Jr. on June 3, 1972, at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Iowa City. The couple were blessed with two children, Hannibal Rock and Aaron Shepard. In 1977, the young family moved to Wisconsin, where the boys were raised and Tom and Georga remained until their retirements. The couple relocated to West Des Moines in 2003, and then to Lady Lake, Fla., in 2009.

Of all the many positions and titles Georga enjoyed during her life, from soccer mom to newspaper editor, she always said that the one of which she was the proudest was mother. Georga was a talented writer, photographer, designer and crafts person, skills she ably put to use in her professional life, as well as using them to create family heirlooms in needlework and photographic art.

She is survived by her husband, Tom of Lady Lake; sons, Hannibal of Washington, D.C., and Aaron (Julie) of Belgium, Wis.; three sisters, Carol Ann Welch and her daughter, Lisa of Akron, Iowa, Jane Lee Prueher of Racine, Wis., Berni Kay Boykin of Sioux City; two brothers, Timothy of Bassett, Neb., and his children, Heather (Rick) Hill, Heath (Kim) Hinkhouse and Holly Hinkhouse, and Richard (Peggy) of Cherokee, Iowa, and their children, Sam and Mikki Jo; many other relatives; and dear friends, including lifelong special friend, Joanne Dyrkopp Schar of Spencer, Iowa.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Rudy and Hertha Hinkhouse; an infant sister; four brothers-in-law, Clayton Welch, Lee Prueher, Gary Boykin and Jim Kennedy; her mother-in-law, Madeline Carroll (Shepard) Bray; and her father-in-law, Thomas D. Bray Sr.