Pioneer resident Bruns dies

Monday, March 9, 1998 | 10:40 a.m.

For hours on end, Josephine Bruns would sit outside her home on Arville Street, watching her husband, Al, putter around in the garden.

They had built their house in 1949 on a one-acre lot off what was then a dirt road near Charleston Boulevard in an area surrounded by nothing but desert cactus and sagebrush. It would be their home for five decades.

Like many longtime Las Vegans, Josephine lamented that booming growth had turned the small, friendly community where she was born and raised into the sprawling, neon jungle it is today.

Josephine "Jo" Craner Bruns, the matriarch of one of Las Vegas' oldest families who with her sisters owned and operated the Dude western wear shop on Fremont Street in the 1940s and '50s, has died. She was 83.

Bruns, a lifelong Las Vegas resident, died Wednesday from complications of a recent stroke at a local care center where she has lived since last May. Al Bruns, her husband of 48 years, died last Oct. 26.

Services for the 1932 graduate of Las Vegas High School were Saturday at Bunkers Eden Vale Mortuary. Interment was in Bunkers Eden Vale Memorial Park.

"My mother just enjoyed the small town atmosphere and tried so hard to keep in touch with the friends from her past, but they became fewer and fewer as the years went by," said Lynda Carson of Las Vegas, her only child. "Her roots were firmly planted here."

Karla Kaye Rosequist, a friend for 25 years, said Bruns loved being outdoors, enjoying the desert climate and her flower-filled yard.

"Jo would sit in the patio and watch Al work on their roses," Rosequist said. "They had a strong dedication to each other and to their grandkids. They helped two of their grandsons make Eagle Scout and supported them when they played sports."

Nedra Stephensen, daughter of Las Vegas propane gas pioneer Byron Thornton and a longtime friend, said Bruns never was one to let a good opportunity slip by.

"She stayed in Las Vegas because she saw the potential for great opportunities that you couldn't find anywhere else during the Depression," said Stephensen, whose father died in January. "That was one of the things that made her so successful in business here."

She was born Josephine Craner on Dec. 22, 1914, in a house on 8th Street and Carson Avenue.

Her parents were Samuel and Maranda Craner. In 1909, when he was working as an engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad, Maranda left their tent home in Caliente to visit him in what was then just a railway water stop called Las Vegas.

While walking along a dusty desert road, she found a horseshoe and considered it an omen of good luck. A few years later, on that very spot -- now the corner of Fremont and 8th Street -- the Craners built their residence.

Maranda hung the horseshoe over the fireplace. It was passed down to Josephine, who lived in that Fremont Street home until 1949, and today is in Lynda's possession.

In the early 1920s, the Craners owned a good deal of Fremont Street, which included a pipe system that supplied water to both sides of Fremont between 6th and 12th streets. At one time, they also owned the 2400 Block of Charleston Boulevard and the Craner Trailer Court at 7th Street and Carson.

Josephine, like her older sisters, Clarice and Helen, attended the 5th Street Grammar School -- now a government office building -- and Las Vegas High. After graduating, she attended business school in Utah.

That training enabled her to land jobs as a deputy clerk in the Clark County Assessors office in the late 1930s and early '40s and as a clerk-typist at the Union Pacific Railroad in the mid-1940s. She also once worked as a ticket counter clerk at Western Airlines at McCarran Air Field, now McCarran International Airport.

Josephine met Al Bruns in 1932 at an Elks party. He was working on the construction of the Hoover Dam at the time. In the 1930s, Al operated the Shell gasoline station at 1st Street and Fremont. He later was a carpenter for Carson Construction.

After Al returned from serving in World War II, he rekindled his courtship with Josephine and they were married on Sept. 25, 1949.

Two years before that, Josephine, Clarice and Helen pooled their resources to open the Dude western wear shop at 723 Fremont St. in what was then called the Craner Building. Today, it is the site of an abandoned movie theatre.

In its heyday, the Dude was the place to go for authentic western wear. The Craner sisters' store also helped sponsor several Elks Helldorado parades and rodeos.

The shop featured dressing rooms shaped like stable stalls and chandeliers fashioned from wagon wheels -- the very wheels from Mrs. Doolittle's dairy cart that had delivered milk and ice cream to Las Vegas in the town's earliest days.

The Dude closed in the mid-1950s and Josephine retired in 1956.

She was active in the 32 Club, a Las Vegas High alumni organization, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bruns worked as a clerk at the LDS Genealogy Library at 9th Street and Clark Avenue.

In addition to her daughter, Bruns is survived by a son-in-law, Steve Carson of Las Vegas; two brothers, Frank Craner of Sequim, Wash., and Samuel Craner of Las Vegas; and three grandsons, Brent Carson, Christopher Carson and John Carson and his wife, Rachel, all of Las Vegas.

She was preceded in death by her three sisters, Clarice Craner, Helen Fuller and Ruth LaBorie.