Berniece LaVonna Oliver, 95 years old, passed from this life to Heaven’s Gate on March 27, 2024, at Faith Presbyterian Hospice in Dallas, Texas.

She was born July 27, 1928, and raised on a farm north of Walnut, Kansas. The third of five children, her father Homer Monroe Inman passed away July 1935 in the midst of a drought and depression leaving the family with very little resources. Her mother, Elora Getrude (Hays) Inman, remarried Richard Poe in 1941. He began working at the ammunition plant in Parsons, Kansas, to support the family.

Berniece graduated from Walnut High School in 1945. Due to metal shortages during World War II, that was the only year the school could not offer senior rings. Her first job was waitressing in Erie, Kansas. At 17, she rode the train to Kansas City to work at the Montgomery Ward catalog warehouse as a billing clerk.

She came to Wichita in 1949 and worked as an elevator operator at the downtown Innes department store, a PBX operator at McCormick Armstrong and then to Boeing Aircraft in 1951, as a key punch operator. She met Victor Lee Oliver in Wichita and they were married on July 23, 1955. Their life together was interrupted with his accidental death in 1973, leaving Berniece to raise the family. She worked in the accounting department of the Federal Land Bank in Wichita and retired in 1993.

Berniece was involved in many organizations: a Sunday school teacher at East Heights Methodist Church for 3 year olds, a Girl Scouts co-leader and cookie chairman, a Hyde Elementary PTA and room mother, YWCA building group, and Christian Women’s Club. She loved all these activities and the people she met and worked with.

In July 2019, Berniece moved to Mountain Creek Retirement Living in Grand Prairie, Texas, to be near her daughters and begin a new phase of life. As her health gradually declined, she continued to do her best. She kept up with news and events and was very independent.

Berniece was preceded in death by husband Victor Lee Oliver, grandson Victor Gregory Oliver, parents Homer and Elora Inman and stepfather Richard Poe, sister Gladys Hill of Erie, Kansas, brother and sister-in-law, William and Ann Inman of Walnut, Kansas, and sister and brother-in-law, Iris and Tom Wimberly of Wichita, Kansas.

She is survived by daughter Martha Lynne (Jack) McMurry of Mansfield, Texas, and grandsons Casey (Sharette) McMurry and Matthew McMurry. Daughter Elizabeth Anne (Marc) Malouf of Carrollton, Texas, and grandson Jonathan Malouf. Son Charles (Susan) Oliver of Sedan, Kansas, and granddaughters Taylor Ann (Dustin) Kuykendall of Oklahoma City, Clara Elizabeth (Jack) Turner of Grand Junction, Colorado, and Caitlyn Holley of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Brother and sister-in-law Wally and Fran Inman of Overland Park, Kansas.

A celebration of Berniece’s life will be held in May in Kansas. Burial at Greenwood Cemetery at 47th and Hoover Road south of Wichita.