Neda Irene Butts Wenger Warmer, beloved mother, family member, and friend, passed away peacefully at her home on October 24, 2025. She was 97.

Born the first full day of summer 1928 in the lap of Larned, Kansas, Neda was the eldest daughter of wheat farmers Flossie and Sidney Butts. Neda’s character was forged in the hardscrabble early years of her life, defying the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and polio. Ahead from the start, she took her first steps at just nine months old, wearing doll shoes, the only pair in town that fit.

Neda’s love of reading and vivid language began early. She would sneak away on the farm, climbing into a tree to steal a few extra minutes with her book, working her way through every print in the one-room schoolhouse. Growing up alongside her younger sister Ca

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