Author Archives: Rita Pravecek

Brittney Hansen age 24 of Winner SD passed away peacefully with her parents by her side on Saturday March 7 2020 at her home in Winner, SD after a long battle with cancer.

Memorial service was held on Monday, March 16, 2020 at 10:30 am at the United Methodist Church in Winner, SD.

Burial will follow at a later date. 

Brittney Ann Hansen was born to Mike and Dawn (Horan) Hansen June 15 1995.  She joined 2 brothers at home who would forever be her protectors. 

She grew up on a farm west of Winner, attended school in Winner graduating with honors in 2014, then graduating from MTI in 2016 while fighting stage 4 colon cancer.

Brittney always had a love for the farm and she spent a lot of time with her dad and Grandpa Bob.  It was the start of her love for everything Ag. In high school she got a job working at All in One Shop for Frank and Lori Weaver. 

What started to be some yard work quickly evolved into working on trucks and this girl could work circles around most. She would come home covered in grease but loved every minute of it.

She also worked for Rick at the Pix Theater,(Rick always said she made popcorn almost as good as he did) 

In the summer of 2017 she did her internship at Grossenburg Implement in Philip SD. Bill Manke took her under his wings and taught her so much.

She also enjoyed working with all the employees there paying extra special attention to Bill Kelly seeing who could out prank the other, and Bobbi always new she was up to something by the look on her face.

She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016 but still managed to graduate college. She wore many hats in her 24 years, she was a farm girl, a student, a theater employee, and even a bartender.

She had a personality that made everyone feel special and she could master almost everything she tried.

Her first job after college was at the Farmer Rancher Co-op in Ainsworth NE as a sales agronomist, the drive got to be too much so from there she worked at the Country Pride Co-op in Winner where she made some lifelong friends.

And then CHS opened in Winner she was offered a job there.  The cancer became more of a factor in her everyday life and she had to quit working and take care of herself.

She had a love for so many things, farm life, golfing hunting fishing reading and friends and family.  With family being the most important.

She leaves behind her parents and brothers Jason of Billings,  Mont.;  Joshua of Pierre SD and her fur baby SJ, Uncle Mark Horan (Cathy) of Mitchell, SD and their daughter Aubree(Jason) of Owatonna, MN  Jeff(Jeri) of Rapid City SD Karren(Dylan) of Ree Heights, SD Brad(Denetta) Horan of Rapid City SD  and grandmother Beverly Hansen of AZ. 

Brittney was preceded in death by her grandmother Delores Hansen that she never met and grandfather Robert Hansen and grandparents Jack and MaryAnn Horan.

Bonnie Eldridge, 85, of Winner, SD passed away on Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at the Winner Regional Health Care Center in Winner, SD.

Funeral services were  held on Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 2 p.m. at the Mason Funeral Home in Winner, SD. Burial followed in the Winner City Cemetery. 

Bonnie L. Sedlacek was born on June 27, 1934 in Winner, SD to Louie Sedlacek and Maude Johnson. Her childhood was spent on a farm site near Hidden Timber and the present site of Assman Implement.

Bonnie was the youngest of three children her brother Joe (Lucille), sister Lenora (Herb) Debuhr were older than she was.

As a child she sought out the company of the family pets to run and play with; which fostered a love of animals, especially cats, that lasted all of her life.

The family moved to Winner when Bonnie was about thirteen years old.

Bonnie met her future husband at her brother-in-law’s motorcycle shop. Bud Eldridge and Bonnie were married on Nov. 5, 1950.

Bud and Bonnie spent the first couple of years on Bud’s family homesite on Bull Creek; they then purchased a farm site about 12 miles east of Winner where they raised crops, chickens, and children; the three C’s of farming.

The children Jeannie, Brad, Ellen, and Laurie ran and played and weeded in mom’s garden until 1966 when they family moved to Winner.

Bud continued farming with his son in law Allen and grandson Travis the rest of his life. Bonnie had a position as a butcher assistant at the Westside Market until the store sold out.

At which time, she went to work at the nursing home in 1970 for Pete and Judy Gregor, first as an overnight CNA and later as a cook.

In about 1978, Dr. Greg Hermson sought out Bonnie to work at his dental practice as his main chairside assistant and later she took over as office manager until her retirement in 1996.

Between the years of 1969 and 2020: Jeannie got married to Richard Brickman and had two sons Michael (Cora) and James (Joan). Brad joined the National Guards and had a son Lonnie.

Ellen married Allen Schwandt and had a son Travis (Carissa), Laurie (Cam) had two children Brandi (Mike) and Logan.

Bonnie became and unofficial “mom” to her only granddaughter Brandie (Mike) Johnson.

Bonnie has numerous great grandchildren and great great grandchildren; Kaitlyn (Zack), Moya, Keely (Chris), Brianna (Quinten), Barrett, Sienna, Taylor (Kayla), Steffan (Destiny), Charyzma (Tyler), Kristen, Dustin, William, Natalia, Paisley, Bayn, Brent, Emma, as well as many nieces and nephews.

During these years, mom not only loved her expanding family but also her many changing and evolving flowerbeds which were the highlight of her springs and summers while they were in bloom.

In the fall she always had to add some little new thing to the bed to delight her the next year.

We her daughter’s will tend to and love her family and flowers so she can delight in them for years to come as she looks in from her next place.

Esther Assman, 98, of Winner, SD passed away on Sunday, March 8, 2020 surrounded by family at the Winner Regional Healthcare Facility in Winner, SD. 
Mass of Christian Burial was held on Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 10 am at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Winner.

Burial  followed in the Winner City Cemetery. 

Esther Assman was an amazing, beautiful, classy, quick witted, well educated, well read, lady that was passionate about current events, politics, her Catholic faith, and her family.

Although an amazing 98 year life is difficult to summarize in a few short paragraphs, she lived a century by being born in the roaring twenties, becoming very frugal because of the dirty thirties, doing what she could for the war effort in the forties, being a very busy wife and mother in the fifties, seeing a man land on the moon in the sixties,  surviving raising teenagers with hot cars in the seventies, overcoming the financial farm crisis of the eighties, seeing the country decline in the nineties and two-thousands, and now making America great again in 2020.

With a heavy heart, we have lost another member of the greatest generation.

On a cold winter solstice in 1921 (Dec, 21), Esther Elizabeth Einsphar was born in a sod house in Brewster NE to Fredrick and Hulda Blumenthal Einsphar.

She was the 5th child in a family of eight.  Early in her childhood, the family moved north to the Rosebud Indian Reservation after her father had read an ad about a tractor that was donated to the reservation from the government and an opportunity to farm.

The family moved south east of Mission on the Antelope creek and built another sod house where the kids would walk to school at the Lone Hill School.

Esther was always sickly as a child and her parents did not expect her to live. She was eight years old before she was well enough to go to school and was in the same grade as her younger sister Elsie.

She later went to high school in Mission and shortly after, WWII began.

Esther and her sister Elsie headed west to Washington State to help in the war effort working in a ship yard on Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle. 

Esther also attended the University of Washington in Seattle while she was there.  Several years later, she had the opportunity to travel to New York City for a summer with a lifelong friend.

On the way back to Washington, she decided to stop in South Dakota to visit family.

At that point, she decided the plains of South Dakota were home, never returning to Washington.

Shortly after her return to South Dakota, Esther went to work at the Todd County Conservation District.  A young handsome rancher by the name of Joe Assman came to the office and he would later get enough courage to ask her out on a date.

They were later united in marriage on Oct. 18, 1947, at St. Thomas Catholic Church, Mission, SD.

To this union of marriage 10 children were born, losing two infant daughters at birth and a son, Gordon, to a farm accident in 1965.

Esther was a lifelong learner and she never sat idle with all of the interests and hobbies she had.   Later in life she studied and passed her South Dakota real estate license and worked for Delores and Otto Littau.

She also worked at Jeanne’s Interiors in Winner, SD which was a good fit for her love of interior design.

Other hobbies included upholstering and refinishing antique furniture, collecting antique bottles, rock hunting, and she was also famous for restoring antique steamer trunks and she gave one to each child and each grandchild.

She kept meticulous scrap books for each child up through there adulthood.

She loved to play cards, dance, golf, and was always up for an adventure which could include a trip to Las Vegas or just a trip to Wood or Carter.

Due to declining health, Joe and Esther moved to Winner, SD when Joe entered the long term living center with colon cancer and Esther moved into the Golden Prairie Manor in 2014.

Both of them made the best of the situation they were in.  She was very appreciative of any visitor, no matter how short the visit was, it meant the world to her and was very grateful.

She was very grateful her 70 year old baby, (Greg), would visit every morning and her 60 year old baby, (Mary Beth), would visit every evening, making her days more bearable.

Esther was a very kind hearted, accepting, forgiving, and generous person, with a good soul that lived through her faith.

Grateful for sharing her life, she is survived by seven children, Greg (Cindy), Chris (Cathy), Ed, Brad (Debra), Dave (Diana), Mike (Darla), Mary Beth (Chris Lovejoy), 18 grandchildren and 30 great grandchildren.

Proceded in death by her parents Fred and Hulda Einspahr, siblings Everett, Otto, Lyle, Pearl, Elsie, Ray, and Kenneth, husband Joe, infant daughters Kimberly and Jean, and son Gordon.