Obituary of Beatrice May Fanning

Beatrice May Fanning passed away December 1, 2011 at Lake Regional Health System in Osage Beach, Missouri. Bea lived life with love, laughter, adventure, and strength. Bea grew up happily with her parents Will and Alyce Cramer and 10 brothers and sisters in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated high school at the age of 16 after skipping a grade. Her first husband Roy Eisele tragically lost his life over Europe in WWII before being able to meet his son. On a visit to San Francisco with family she met her second husband Grover Fanning, who had just returned from the South Pacific an Army Air Corps Ace. Grover and Bea went on to have three daughters, Linda Todd, Diana Houghton, and Kathleen Clever, all now of Overland Park, KS. Sadly her son died at a young age, but Bea gathered her strength to raise three daughters. Bea and Grover owned a garden center in Southern California and Kansas City, and had a life-long enjoyment of gardening and flower arranging. Somehow this was not passed on to her children, and Bea took great delight in laughing about their ability to ruin even plastic plants. Bea worked at many clerical and professional jobs and retired after working for Ford Motor Company for 20 years. A true lover of adventure, Bea traveled to 6 of the 7 continents and thrilled her grandchildren by taking them on some of her travels, like cruising with a granddaughter, introducing another to Broadway plays, taking another for her first plane ride to taste an avocado right from the tree, and her youngest grandchild on trips to Graceland and civil war battlefields. Bea learned to snow ski at age 51 and encouraged many family trips to the slopes. While her motto was �If you�re old enough to ski, you�re old enough to carry your own equipment� she still helped all the kids and carried their skis. Bea believed that family was the most important part of life, often gathering them around for a night of board games (during which she was known to cheerfully and slyly cheat on occasion) or cards. Her love of family led Bea to spend countless hours in dusty rooms studying their genealogy back beyond William the Conqueror. She passed this passion on to two of her granddaughters who are both excited to carry on the studies. She was active in a number of church and community activities and after moving to the Lake became an officer in the Lake Area Daughters of the American Revolution. Bea was an avid Kansas City Chiefs football fan, enthusiastically attending games up to the last week before her stroke and inspiring her home for the last five years, Laurie Care Center, to begin a tradition of tailgating and watching the game every week. Just a few favorite family memories of Bea are her perfect enchiladas, uncanny ability to be the human calculator, teaching us that Grandmas really do swim, great family trips, poodle skirts, and that gorgeous smile. She will be greatly missed.