Lavesta “Tess” Banning

Private graveside services for LaVesta A. (Tess) Banning, 81, Lawrence, KS will be held at the Washington Creek Cemetery in SW Douglas County, Kansas.  She died on Saturday evening, February 13, 2010 at the Hillside Village of DeSoto, KS.

She was born on November 27, 1928 in Lawrence, the daughter of James R. & Alberta Bateson Rule.  She grew up in Lawrence and was a 1946 graduate of Liberty Memorial High School.  She attended one year at the Lawrence Business College.

Mrs. Banning was first employed as a secretary for the Executive Vice President of Lawrence National Bank.  She later worked in Augusta, GA and then for the FMC Corporation and KPL, both in Lawrence. She and her husband founded the Banning Oil & Ice Company in 1966 in Lawrence and currently the family business is still owned and operated by the family as a restaurant equipment company.

Mrs. Banning was a member of the Trinity Lutheran Church and the American Legion Auxiliary.

She was married to Charles Warren Banning on September 17, 1950 in Lawrence, KS.  He survives of the home.

Other survivors include a daughter, Nancy Amison (husband, Willie), of Lawrence, a son, Bruce Banning (Trish Van Vliet, fiancée), of Lawrence and three grandchildren (Ryan, Morgan and Jennifer). She was preceded in death by her father, James Rule and her mother, Alberta Rule Selichnow.

The family will greet friends from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at the Warren-McElwain Mortuary in Lawrence.

The family suggests memorials in her name to the Douglas County Visiting Nurses Rehabilitation and Hospice Care or to the Trinity Lutheran Church and may be sent in care of the mortuary.