The funeral for Rena Marie Rush, 99, a resident of the Emporia Presbyterian Manor, will be at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Ringwood, Okla. The Rev. Galen Hinshaw of Rose Hill will conduct the service.
Burial will be in Pleasant Hill Cemetery at Meno, Okla. The family will meet friends from 7 to 8 p.m. today at the Roberts-Blue-Barnett Funeral Home.
Memorial contributions to the Good Samaritan Fund at the manor may be sent to the funeral home, P.O. Box 175, Emporia, KS 66801.
Mrs. Rush, a homemaker, died Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003, at the manor, just two days shy of her 100th birthday.
Rena Marie Hays, the daughter of Loyd B. and Ora D. Wallace Hays, was born Dec. 19, 1903, on her parents' homestead in the Oklahoma Territory near Ringwood, Okla.
She graduated from Wichita High School and attended Friends University in Wichita. She married Glen E. Rush on June 7, 1931, at University Friends Church in Wichita. He died Feb. 1, 1995, in Emporia.
Mrs. Rush was a member of the Original Pioneers of the First Families of the Twin Territories, Oklahoma Historical Society, Sons and Daughters of the Cherokee Strip and the Community Club. She was responsible for collecting and compiling three volumes of anecdotal histories of the settlement of Ringwood, which are housed in the Oklahoma State Historical Library.
She is survived by a daughter, Mildred "Milli" Dick of Emporia; a son, Harold R. Rush of Payson, Ariz.; six grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.
A son, Edward E. Rush; a sister, Carrie Hays Davis; and two brothers, Earl Hays and Ray Hays, died earlier.