Mary Ellen (Eagan) Bryant Obituary
September 26, 1929 - January 29, 2026
Funeral information:
Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026 at South Crysler Restoration Branch
10:00 am Visitation
11:00 am Service
Graveside following at Mound Grove Cemetery
Mary Ellen (Eagan) Bryant was born on September 26, 1929 to Roy G. and Royal Pearl
(Wood) Eagan in Lamar, Colorado. She was the second of five children.
She attended Lamar High School where she became a member of the National Honor Society, earning a small scholarship to the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, then known as the Colorado State College of Education. She attended college there for two years but had always wanted to go to Graceland College, the RLDS Church college in Lamoni, Iowa so she made the switch in 1950.
As Graceland was only a two-year college at the time, after earning her Associate of Arts degree in General Business, Mary followed many Church students to the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, where she graduated in 1954 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration.
Upon returning home to Colorado, Mary landed a job as Executive Secretary for the President, Vice President, and Treasurer of Plateau Natural Gas Co., located in Colorado Springs. She worked there for five years.
While in college at UCM, Mary had met fellow student Maurice Bryant. The two met again at the 1958 RLDS World Conference in Independence, Missouri. They went to various preaching services that week and afterward, Maurice traveled to Colorado to meet Mary’s family. Mary traveled to Rochester, New York the following May to visit Maurice and meet his family. All the while a flurry of correspondence flowed back and forth between the two. They were married on September 27, 1959 and settled in Rochester, New York.
Mary went to work for Eastman Kodak Company in their Business and Technical Personnel Department, often describing that job as the best job she ever had.
She worked for Kodak until leaving the workforce in 1962 when she had her first child, Jay, born in February of that year. After a move to Independence, Missouri in late 1962, two more children came along: Gayle in 1963 and Douglas in 1964. Mary spent the next eight years raising her children.
In 1970, Mary began working again part-time, then full-time as a secretary and bookkeeper. In 1980 she went back to school as a full-time graduate student at UCM, earning 22 hours toward a Master’s Degree in Education and earning her Missouri teaching certification. She then worked for Armco Steel, Kansas City Power and Light, and finished her career at the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority as an Executive Assistant.
After retirement, Mary focused her full attention on her greatest love - her family, attending family gatherings, concerts and events that her grandchildren participated in, and using her artistic skills to create memory books for her own family as well as each family of her siblings and children. She wanted her children, grandchildren, and great- grandchildren to know how important they were to her and how much she cared for them.
She is survived by her husband of 66 years, Maurice Bryant, her children Jay (Rita) Bryant, Gayle (Tony) Fleming, and Doug (Tracy) Bryant, her grandchildren Phillip Bryant, Michael (Julie) Fleming, Matthew (Stephanie) Fleming, Christina (Mike) Haun, Melissa (Jake) Lair, Ben (Allyson) Fleming, Nicholas (Katia) Bryant, Catie (Trey) Shepherd, James (Genevieve) Wulff, and John Wulff, and 18 great-grandchildren.
