Husband speaks about missing Lincoln woman
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BY CORY MATTESON / Lincoln Journal Star
A Lincoln priest was visiting Vail, Colo., just five miles from Beaver Creek last Friday when he learned of the tragedy that had befallen the Brake family.
Gene Brake said the priest celebrated a Mass in their room after his wife, Mary, fell into the creek during a horseback ride.
When the family set a statue of the Virgin Mary at the water’s edge, he blessed it.
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An interview with Gene Brake
An interview with Gene Brake, who lost his wife, Mary, last Friday while vacationing in Colorado. Gene speaks about his wife, her impact on the Lincol...
“And we took it up to the site where it happened the next morning,” Gene Brake said. “To our amazement, as we were pulling into the area, a doe deer came up to the creek and stopped.”
He said the doe had a big grin, a twinkle in its eye and long, thin legs.
“It really made us feel like we were there with Mary,” he said.
In a recorded interview with Scott Stewart, a family friend, Gene Brake spoke publicly for the first time about his wife, a prominent Lincoln Realtor whose funeral services have been scheduled for Monday.
Last Friday, the horse Mary Brake was riding slipped as it attempted to cross Beaver Creek. A recovery effort has since been indefinitely suspended.
Gene Brake said his Mary, 56, will be missed, and that he wished there were more people like her in the world.
“She had an ability to bond with people extremely quickly,” he said. “Everybody felt like she was their best friend, which is an amazing quality she had.”
He said the outpouring of support, from the people of Vail and Lincoln, and from all over the world, has been overwhelming,
A Vail flower shop provided the petals that the Brakes’ 9-year-old daughter, Bayley, scattered into the creek as a tribute to her mother.
Two thousand nuns in India prayed for her. Churchgoers in Vail and Lincoln prayed, and Mary Brake was mentioned in Sunday services across the country. Gene Brake knows that, he said, because people e-mailed him.
“The number of people Mary had touched was so overwhelming,” he said. “I had no idea the number of people who cared about Mary. There was just something about Mary that everyone wanted to know her. Everyone wanted to be her friend.”
Mary Brake loved the outdoors and traveling, Gene Brake said. The couple went with several friends to California one year to catch a Nebraska game and see the wine country. Gene Brake said they chartered a $1,500-a-day limo bus for the trip.
When the bus approached the Golden Gate Bridge, Mary Brake made the driver stop.
She told everyone inside the luxury cruiser they were walking across the nearly two-mile-long landmark. Of course they followed her.
"It was just typical Mary," he said.
Reach Cory Matteson at 473-7438 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.
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Friends in Lincoln.... wrote on June 27, 2008 12:41 am:
Christina Johnson wrote on June 27, 2008 7:07 am:
I'm so sorry...I will pray for the safe return of her and pray for the healing of your family in this time of need. She sounds like a wonderful woman with a "Huge Heart." "
Lori Allen Lien wrote on June 27, 2008 12:33 pm:
amom wrote on June 27, 2008 3:47 pm:
money talks wrote on June 27, 2008 7:16 pm:
jc wrote on June 27, 2008 9:23 pm:
don't have anything good to say-don't say anything at all is very appropriate. "