Obituary for Sara Frances Bohrer
Sara Frances Beal was born August 14, 1948, to William Chester and Laura (Brown) Beal. She died during heart surgery on May 26, 2023, at Ascension Hospital in Wichita, Kansas. Burial will be May 31, 2023, in Douglass Cemetery, Douglass, Butler County, Kansas, following a funeral at Smith Family Mortuary in Derby.
She is survived by her husband of 55 years, Stephen Dean Bohrer. Also surviving are son Aaron Dean Bohrer and his wife, Laurel (Edwards) Bohrer, and granddaughters Grace Ellis "Ellie" and Sara Dean. In addition, son Brice Matthew Dean Bohrer, wife Heidi (Busenitz) Bohrer, and four grandchildren: Abigail Renee, Isaac Dean, Ethan Dean, and Levi Dean. Sara loved her family more than life itself.
Sara was born in Pittsburg, Kansas and raised until grade 4 in Fredonia, Kansas, when the family moved to Douglass, Kansas. She played flute and was drum major of the Douglass High School band. She worked at the Copeland Memorial Library in Douglass each day after school during high school. She was a wrestling queen candidate in her senior year. Throughout high school, she was involved in church youth group, pep club, and Y-Teens. She and her future husband Stephen dated throughout high school, graduating in 1966.
She graduated in 1970 from Kansas State Teachers College (Emporia), where she was an accounting major and economics minor. She worked in the college library for three years. She married on June 1, 1968, the summer before her junior year in college. After Stephen headed off for army officers' school in 1969, Sara took extra courses to finish a half-semester early so she could join her husband at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, in the spring of 1970. While he was confined to the fort most of the six-month school, she shared an apartment in Silver City, Maryland with another candidate's wife and worked as a postal clerk at the then-nascent Environmental Protection Agency. They were together on a couple of weekends (Memorial and Independence Day, 1970), enjoying DC's museums and Sunday afternoons sitting beside the Potomac River when he couldn't leave the fort.
Ending the army days in August 1971, Sara worked for a small accounting firm in Valley Falls, Kansas, after Aaron was born and Stephen began a science teaching career. After moving to Wichita in 1974, she worked income tax seasons for Peterson, Peterson, and Goss for several years. When Stephen became a school administrator, the couple moved to Derby, Kansas, where Sara became the lone employee of the Derby Teachers Credit Union working from her home. Later she went to work operating the Derby office of Kansas Gas & Electric Company (KG&E) for a few years before moving to the corporate headquarters in downtown Wichita working a total of ten years, quitting in 1991 to go with Stephen to Bazine, Kansas where they resided for two years. While there, she co-sponsored the high school's junior class concession stand and drove daily to Hays, where she prepared taxes at H&R Block. She accompanied Stephen and 12 high school seniors on a four-day senior trip to Chicago in June 1993.
While living in Burden, Kansas, Sara became City Clerk in October 1997, a position she enjoyed immensely despite the stress of dealing with the public and her mother's declining health. She also served on the Ark Valley Credit Union board of directors in Arkansas City.
Sara's mother moved in with Sara and Stephen in 1997 due to the expenses and problems of living alone. She remained in their home until her death in January 2000.
While in Holyoke, Sara was office manager for Coldwell Banker Hancocks Reality in Dodge City for a year but didn't have enough to stay busy, so she quit to take a position as an abstractor for Fort County Title Company. In Holyoke, Colorado, she became the accountant for the Melissa Memorial Hospital, where she handled accounts payable and payroll from Sep 2003 to Apr 2005 (she quit to travel to see family in China).
Sara served on the board of directors of the Heginbotham Library (president 2007) and director of the Holyoke Credit Union supervisory committee (2006-2009). Several months before moving from Holyoke in June 2009, she was appointed to the City Council.
On her 65th birthday, while living in Alamosa, Colorado, she began another career as the accounts receivable clerk for a five-city John Deere dealership.
Sara enjoyed cross-stitching for many years, loved reading mysteries and biographies, and worked through C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer's works. When her sons were into J.R.R. Tolkien's books, Sara read them to assure herself they were not Satanic as some contended. In 1995 Sara, Aaron, and Stephen sat in the booth at Oxford University in Oxfordshire, England, where in the 1930s and '40s, Tolkien and Lewis ate, drank, and conversed. Sara loved the family’s pets, including over the years two Guiana pigs, a miniature rabbit, two beagles, a west highland terrier, two Gordon setters, and an Australian cattle dog.
On December 1, 2018, she and Stephen had an auction and sold household furniture. They stored a few antiques, family memorabilia, keepsakes, and sufficient furniture to set up an apartment or assisted living when ready. Their house didn't sell immediately, so they lived with a couch, TV, and card table for nearly a year. The house sold in October 2019, and they immediately set out on what became a three-year odyssey in a 31-foot pull trailer to forty states while driving 60,000 miles until destroyed in a fire on November 5, 2022. They immediately chose to return to Wichita after thirty years of living elsewhere. They promptly found an apartment where they were comfortable until her death four months later.
As a child, she developed a heart murmur that did not cause problems until in her 60s when her heart could no longer deliver sufficient blood through her body. Her aortic valve was replaced in 2014 in Denver.
Last Friday, Brice, Stephen, and Sara each prayed before a nurse led Sara away to begin preparations. In Sara's prayer, she said, “Lord if it doesn’t work, I will see you soon.”
This is the hope and peace we have as believers. Thank you for your friendship, love, and prayers.
Memorials may be made to Douglass PEO, made to PEO Chapter BN, c/o PO Box 112, Douglass, KS 67039.
She is survived by her husband of 55 years, Stephen Dean Bohrer. Also surviving are son Aaron Dean Bohrer and his wife, Laurel (Edwards) Bohrer, and granddaughters Grace Ellis "Ellie" and Sara Dean. In addition, son Brice Matthew Dean Bohrer, wife Heidi (Busenitz) Bohrer, and four grandchildren: Abigail Renee, Isaac Dean, Ethan Dean, and Levi Dean. Sara loved her family more than life itself.
Sara was born in Pittsburg, Kansas and raised until grade 4 in Fredonia, Kansas, when the family moved to Douglass, Kansas. She played flute and was drum major of the Douglass High School band. She worked at the Copeland Memorial Library in Douglass each day after school during high school. She was a wrestling queen candidate in her senior year. Throughout high school, she was involved in church youth group, pep club, and Y-Teens. She and her future husband Stephen dated throughout high school, graduating in 1966.
She graduated in 1970 from Kansas State Teachers College (Emporia), where she was an accounting major and economics minor. She worked in the college library for three years. She married on June 1, 1968, the summer before her junior year in college. After Stephen headed off for army officers' school in 1969, Sara took extra courses to finish a half-semester early so she could join her husband at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, in the spring of 1970. While he was confined to the fort most of the six-month school, she shared an apartment in Silver City, Maryland with another candidate's wife and worked as a postal clerk at the then-nascent Environmental Protection Agency. They were together on a couple of weekends (Memorial and Independence Day, 1970), enjoying DC's museums and Sunday afternoons sitting beside the Potomac River when he couldn't leave the fort.
Ending the army days in August 1971, Sara worked for a small accounting firm in Valley Falls, Kansas, after Aaron was born and Stephen began a science teaching career. After moving to Wichita in 1974, she worked income tax seasons for Peterson, Peterson, and Goss for several years. When Stephen became a school administrator, the couple moved to Derby, Kansas, where Sara became the lone employee of the Derby Teachers Credit Union working from her home. Later she went to work operating the Derby office of Kansas Gas & Electric Company (KG&E) for a few years before moving to the corporate headquarters in downtown Wichita working a total of ten years, quitting in 1991 to go with Stephen to Bazine, Kansas where they resided for two years. While there, she co-sponsored the high school's junior class concession stand and drove daily to Hays, where she prepared taxes at H&R Block. She accompanied Stephen and 12 high school seniors on a four-day senior trip to Chicago in June 1993.
While living in Burden, Kansas, Sara became City Clerk in October 1997, a position she enjoyed immensely despite the stress of dealing with the public and her mother's declining health. She also served on the Ark Valley Credit Union board of directors in Arkansas City.
Sara's mother moved in with Sara and Stephen in 1997 due to the expenses and problems of living alone. She remained in their home until her death in January 2000.
While in Holyoke, Sara was office manager for Coldwell Banker Hancocks Reality in Dodge City for a year but didn't have enough to stay busy, so she quit to take a position as an abstractor for Fort County Title Company. In Holyoke, Colorado, she became the accountant for the Melissa Memorial Hospital, where she handled accounts payable and payroll from Sep 2003 to Apr 2005 (she quit to travel to see family in China).
Sara served on the board of directors of the Heginbotham Library (president 2007) and director of the Holyoke Credit Union supervisory committee (2006-2009). Several months before moving from Holyoke in June 2009, she was appointed to the City Council.
On her 65th birthday, while living in Alamosa, Colorado, she began another career as the accounts receivable clerk for a five-city John Deere dealership.
Sara enjoyed cross-stitching for many years, loved reading mysteries and biographies, and worked through C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer's works. When her sons were into J.R.R. Tolkien's books, Sara read them to assure herself they were not Satanic as some contended. In 1995 Sara, Aaron, and Stephen sat in the booth at Oxford University in Oxfordshire, England, where in the 1930s and '40s, Tolkien and Lewis ate, drank, and conversed. Sara loved the family’s pets, including over the years two Guiana pigs, a miniature rabbit, two beagles, a west highland terrier, two Gordon setters, and an Australian cattle dog.
On December 1, 2018, she and Stephen had an auction and sold household furniture. They stored a few antiques, family memorabilia, keepsakes, and sufficient furniture to set up an apartment or assisted living when ready. Their house didn't sell immediately, so they lived with a couch, TV, and card table for nearly a year. The house sold in October 2019, and they immediately set out on what became a three-year odyssey in a 31-foot pull trailer to forty states while driving 60,000 miles until destroyed in a fire on November 5, 2022. They immediately chose to return to Wichita after thirty years of living elsewhere. They promptly found an apartment where they were comfortable until her death four months later.
As a child, she developed a heart murmur that did not cause problems until in her 60s when her heart could no longer deliver sufficient blood through her body. Her aortic valve was replaced in 2014 in Denver.
Last Friday, Brice, Stephen, and Sara each prayed before a nurse led Sara away to begin preparations. In Sara's prayer, she said, “Lord if it doesn’t work, I will see you soon.”
This is the hope and peace we have as believers. Thank you for your friendship, love, and prayers.
Memorials may be made to Douglass PEO, made to PEO Chapter BN, c/o PO Box 112, Douglass, KS 67039.