Gail F. Brandyberry

A Mass of Christian Burial for Gail F. Brandyberry will be held on Monday, February 17, 2025, at 10:30 a.m. at St. Joseph Catholic Church in New Almelo, Kansas with Father Joshua Werth and Father Maurice Current as celebrants. Interment will follow at the St. Joseph Cemetery in New Almelo, Kansas. The family requests casual or Husker attire be worn for Gail's service.

Gail Florence Brandyberry, 66 years of age, of rural Republican City, Nebraska, passed away on Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at Harlan County Health Systems in Alma, Nebraska. She was born in Norton, Kansas, on October 10, 1958, the fourth of six children born to Randall and Virginia (Wolf) Nickelson. Gail was baptized, confirmed, and received her education from St. Joseph Catholic Grade School until it closed. She then attended Lenora Public Schools and graduated with the class of 1976.

On February 12, 1977, Gail was united in marriage to Neal Brandyberry at St. Joseph Catholic Church in New Almelo, and to this union, four children were born: Nick, Jeremy, Marla, and Kyle. The couple made their home in Lenora, Kansas, until moving to Columbus, Nebraska, in 1985. While in Columbus, Gail pursued higher education and received her LPNC Degree in Nursing from Columbus Community College. The family moved to Howells, Nebraska, in 1997, where Gail worked as a nurse at West Point Memorial Hospital and nursing homes in the surrounding area. In 2018, the couple made their home near Republican City. When Gail retired, her dream was to open a gently used kids' clothing store, and in July 2021, she opened Reclaimed on Main.

Gail enjoyed antiquing and taking trips to the casino with friends. At Christmas time, she relished getting the family together at the Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree. Being able to watch her grandchildren do the things they enjoy was something very special to her. She also loved watching her favorite sports teams, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the Denver Broncos, and the Kansas City Royals, anytime she could. One of her favorite weekly activities was bowling league with her friends when they lived in Columbus and Howells. Her flowers and hummingbirds were a special part of her life. Most of all, Gail was a wonderful wife, mother, and grandmother who loved spending time with her family whenever she could.

She was a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Orleans, Nebraska.

Gail was preceded in death by her parents; and her sister, Rose Ann Nickelson.

Gail leaves to celebrate her life her husband, Neal Brandyberry of rural Republican City; her children: Nick Brandyberry and his wife, Stephanie of Alma; Jeremy Brandyberry and his wife, Tera of Omaha, Nebraska; Marla Lans and her husband, Alex of Stamford, Nebraska; and Kyle Brandyberry and his wife, Erin of North Platte, Nebraska; 11 grandchildren: Nate, Carter, and Tucker Brandyberry; Lily, Katlynn, Mariah, and Zora Brandyberry; Rylee and Dylan Lans; Marshall and Makenna Brandyberry; Siblings: Terry Nickelson and his wife, Sherri of Byers, Kansas; Jerry Nickelson and his wife, Carol of Hill City, Kansas; Rhonda Shepard and her husband, Steve of Collyer, Kansas; Neil Nickelson and his wife, Thelma of Hays, Kansas; and a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.

A visitation with family present will be held on Sunday, February 16, 2025, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., with a Vigil service at 4:00 p.m. at St. Joseph Catholic Church in New Almelo.

A memorial has been established in Gail's honor, and kindly suggested to the family for later designation.

Expressions of caring and kindness can be sent to the family at www.nelsonbauerfh.com

The Bauer-Torrey & Mach Funeral Home in Alma is in charge of the arrangements.

This is the Eulogy that Kyle read at Gail's service.

Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for coming.  I'm honored to stand before you today to celebrate the life of my mom, Gail.  I'd like to take time to share some personal memories and stories shared with me as we remember and cherish her today.

Standing here in this place brings back some of my favorite childhood memories with her.  She loved coming back here to visit Grandma and Grandpa Nickelson multiple times per year.  One of our annual trips was to partake in the Bazaar at St. Joseph's church.  I can't tell you how many beanie babies she helped MJ and I win at the bean bag toss.  She always enjoyed playing the marble game Grandpa made as we all sat around the kitchen table in the house down the hill.  On Sundays, we would all walk up the hill with Grandma to Sunday service and Mom would let us play on the playground on the way back to the house after church.  Every now and then she would partake in a turn on the merry go round, slide or swing.  In her later years, she relished the opportunity to come down here with MJ to visit the cemetery and reminisce about the past as she watched Rylee and Dylan play on the same playground that she spent many years playing on herself.

If you knew my mom much at all in her prime, you know she was a go getter and could be a real spit fire.  I recall mom sharing a story from her youth where she would ride around town with her siblings and shoot fireworks out of the back of Grandpa's old pickup.  This may have inspired me to make a poor choice in high school that thankfully ended in a warning from our town cop.  Shortly after moving to Howells, Nick and I thought it would be a good idea to take a sick day and stay home, rather than me going to Kindergarten, even though both of us felt perfectly fine.  When Mom found out, she made me call my Kindergarten teacher and tell her what happened.  She watched with an all knowing glint in her eye as I struggled to explain to my teacher why I wasn't at school that day. Another memory of the predicaments mom could get herself into is one evening on the farm when Dad needed help putting a round bale feeder on some hay for the cows.  It was a muddy mess that night and Dad slipped, dropping the bale feeder on Mom and breaking her arm.  I remember going to school and telling people, "My dad broke my mom's arm" which as you can imagine, led to some questions.  Mom got that all familiar laugh and smile as she imagined the story people ran with.  Mom understood that mistakes will happen, but we should enjoy life and learn from them.

Mom had a lot of passions in life.  She thoroughly enjoyed life on the farm when she moved to Howells and it was quick to become the local "funny farm" as she called it, consisting of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, donkeys, rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese, peacocks, llamas, dogs, cats….well, you get the idea.  I remember she had mastered the peacock call and could walk around the farm calling the peacocks to her.  It was quite the startling sound if you've never heard it before.  She was also quick to agree to many of MJ's exotic pets like ferrets, chinchillas, parakeets and more.  She got a kick out of the ferret hiding in the couch and popping out to bite people when they would sit down.

Being a hobby farm, it meant Mom and Dad had to care for the animals after working their full-time jobs. Dad had to travel out of town a lot with work and Mom never missed doing the chores when he was away, no matter how tired she was or how miserable the conditions were.  One of her favorite pets was Klinger the racoon, who she rescued as a baby.  She loved feeding him marshmallows and when he had grown and went off on his own, she would still get him to come back from time to time by leaving some out.  She would smile at the sight of him and loved watching him ask for more marshmallows.

Mom had a sense of care and determination that as an adult, I have come to appreciate.  Shortly after moving to Howells from Columbus, she made the decision to go to school to become a Licensed Practical Nurse.  For what seemed like forever, she would balance driving 45 minutes, each way, to Columbus for school, work and still be there to care for us and take care of the farm when Dad was gone for work.  After her education was complete, she began working at the hospital and assisted living in West Point, where you could tell she loved many of the people she helped.  She even coordinated us taking our "funny farm" to several nursing homes in the area to bring joy and happiness to the residents.  When she was working and the weather was bad, she would often stay the night at work so there would be staff to care for the patients when others couldn't get there.

Growing up, she was sure to make it to any activity or event she could for us kids.  I remember her taking us to swimming lessons and competitions, soccer and gymnastics when in Columbus, traveling for rodeo and wrestling with Nick, watching basketball and football at Iowa School for the Deaf with Jeremy, softball and volleyball with MJ and wrestling and one-act with me.  I can't begin to tell you how many 4-H projects she would sign all of us up for.  In addition to showing every livestock possible, she loved doing woodworking, refinishing projects, baking, gardening, sewing and photography, to name a few.  She taught us how to do these things when we were younger and took pride watching us become independent as we grew older.  She LOVED fair week and looked forward to staying a week at the county fair and state fair each year.

As Mom aged, she loved spending time with all of the grandchildren.  At get togethers, she would often plant seeds of mischief in the ears of the children and smile as she watched the interactions play out.  She would light up when she got a video call from any of the children.  Christmas was by far her favorite time of year, and she would look for any excuse to start playing Christmas music.  I distinctly remember one July her calling and asking if I had started listening to Christmas music yet.  She loved the messages behind the songs and seeing others embrace the Christmas Spirit.  For many years, she loved picking out her Christmas tree with the whole family at a tree farm and then going home and getting it set up before Thanksgiving was over.  Football and baseball were her favorite sports to watch.  She loved getting to watch a Husker, Bronco or Royal game with the family and would often text many of us during the games with a "Go Big Red!" or the occasional "Refs are terrible!"

In recent years, Mom's health started to decline significantly, and she struggled to continue to do the things she loved.  Because of this, she spent a lot of time at home and enjoyed the company of her feisty cat, Shasta, who would jump out and bite you if she liked you.  Shasta passed away last year, and I'd like to think the two of them are reunited in Heaven, watching the birds outside the window, which Mom so fondly liked to do. We know that she would have enjoyed living a more active life if her body allowed her to.

A couple years ago, we nearly lost Mom when she was hospitalized as her condition worsened.  The outlook wasn't good and doctors had prepared us for the worst.  As I sat with her in the hospital, I started to think about ways to honor her memory.  I remembered an advertisement I had seen from our local public power district asking for entries into a tree giveaway, so I filled it out from my phone that night in the hospital.  Thankfully, mom recovered, and we were lucky to get a couple more years with her.  Some time had passed, and the tree giveaway contest had become a distant memory until about 6 months later when I received a piece of mail announcing we had won a tree.  At first, I thought it was a scam, until I remembered I had entered the contest months ago and I now had a memorial tree for my mom that I was just with the weekend before.  The prize was a gift card only valid for a few months, so needless to say, I've had a memorial tree planted in our yard for about a year and a half.  I was too embarrassed to share that story with mom, but I bet she's getting a good laugh about it now.  God has a funny way of preparing us for the unexpected moments and that close call a few years ago was a not-so-subtle reminder to enjoy the time we had with mom.

Mom loved all of us in the family and always had ideas of things we should do together.  In recent years it was planning fun games and activities at our holiday gatherings, but it was also as big as gifting the family a cruise to the Bahamas for Christmas in 2013.  Shortly after that, she took a trip with Dad and close family friends, Duane and Cindy, to explore Seattle and on a cruise to Alaska.  Mom was always about making memories together and put a lot of thought into it.  Mom loved her family and those close to her, which is something I hope we can all take away as a part of her legacy.  As we come to a close, I'd like to share a sentiment that Mom expressed to several of us, one she wished to have on her tombstone. It's a reminder of what she's up to in heaven and a reflection of her enduring spirit: "I will love my Huskers here or there; I will love my Huskers everywhere."

Love you, Mom