Remembering Brownie McNeely

 

The last time I saw Brownie McNeely was at the Newtonia Fall Festival a couple of years ago. She greeted me with a smile and gave me a feeling like I was the one person in the world she wanted to see that day. I'm sure that wasn't the case.

It was just the magic of Brownie McNeely.

She made everyone feel that way. On that particular day, I felt like someone had bottled up sunshine and brought it to Newtonia.

When I heard yesterday that Brownie died at age 89, it was sad news but it was news I had been expecting. 

I had been told she wasn't doing well a few months back and I sent her a book I'd heard she wanted to read and a letter. A few days later, I received a thoughtful response. Though I had sent her the book and message to lift her spirits, she turned the tables on me. I was the one whose spirits were lifted.

That was the magic of Brownie McNeely.

It was a magic that she spread for more than 45 years at Citizens State Bank of Granby, including several years when she operated the bank's Newtonia branch in a corner of Carroll Gum's store.

It was a magic that the people of Granby Methodist Church and the entire Granby community.

What makes Brownie's warmth and cheerful disposition all the more remarkable is that she was able to hold on to those qualities after her family suffered the most horrible loss imaginable when her oldest child, Barbara, was murdered in a parking lot at Northpark Mall in 1977.

The horrific nature of the murder followed by a trial that saw Barbara's killer declared not guilty due to mental defect and placed into treatment instead of into a prison almost certainly devastated the McNeely family.

It was the type of tragedy that has torn many a family apart, but through a pain that is difficult for most of us to imagine, Brownie not only persevered, but held her family together and continued to be a positive presence in the community through the years.

That was the magic of Brownie McNeely.

A magic that will be sorely missed.