Roberta Marie VanBuskirk, age 68, a resident of rural Mapleton, Kansas, died Sunday, October 22, 2006 at the Mercy Health Center in Fort Scott. She was born September 5, 1938, the daughter of Harold Hewlett and Ethel M. Carpenter Hewlett. She graduated from Prescott High School in 1956. She married Charles D. VanBuskirk on April 17, 1960 at the Prescott United Methodist Church by the Rev. Earl Bingham. She first worked as a secretary for the Western Insurance Company and later in the bindery department at Ward-Kraft, all the time raising her three boys and helping her husband on the family farm. Roberta was active with the Mapleton United Methodist Church and the United Methodist Women. She also served for several years on the Bourbon County Election Board.

Survivors include her husband, Charles, of the home; three sons, Jay Charles VanBuskirk and wife, Donna, Fort Scott, Mark Robert VanBuskirk, and wife, Tammy, Parsons, and Don Harold VanBuskirk, Butler, Missouri. Also surviving are brother, Frank Hewlett, Olathe; sister, Elizabeth Strasburg, Independence; and five grandchildren, Braea, Dalton, Haley, Brady, and Bret.

Elder Joe Rei will conduct funeral services at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, October 26, 2006, at the Cheney Witt Memorial Chapel. Burial will follow in the Mapleton Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday at the Cheney Witt Chapel. Memorials are suggested to the Mapleton United Methodist Church and may be left in care of the Cheney Witt Memorial Chapel, 201 S. Main, P.O. Box 347, Fort Scott, KS 66701.