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Biography

Glen Willard Bruner (1897-1987), was born in Red Cloud, Nebraska, August 22, 1897 to Charles Erwin Bruner and Sue Evelyn Brown Bruner. Moving early to Colorado, Glen attended public schools, then graduated from Colorado Agricultural College (now Colorado State University) with a BS in Civil and Irrigation Engineering in 1917. He served in World War I in the 148th Field Artillery of Colorado and Wyoming. At the end of the War, while still in the Army, he studied languages at the University of Grenoble, France. After his return to the United States, he married Edith Williams in June 1920. Edith was born in 1896, Rockvale, Colorado, the daughter of John Williams and Lucy Ann Bodycomb Williams. She graduated with a BS in Home Economics also from the Colorado Agricultural College, 1919. The Bruners had no children.

They were accepted as missionaries by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and sent to Japan, arriving October 1920. They taught at the Chinzei Gakuin, the Methodist Boys' School, in Nagasaki. While on furlough, 1926-27, Glen received a Master's degree in Religion from Northwestern University, and received full ordination in the Colorado Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (now the Rocky Mountain Conference of the United Methodist Church). Because of the Depression, the supporting churches could no longer afford the Bruners' missionary salaries. So in 1931, Glen Bruner left the Boys' School and joined the American Foreign Service working in consular and/or diplomatic functions until 1942.

The beginning of World War II caught Bruner working in the American Consulate in Taipei, Taiwan. The Japanese brought him back to the Tokyo Consulate where he was interned with the other American diplomats for several months. He was sent to the United States in 1942 with the other diplomats on an exchange ship. Bruner went back into the Army and served in Intelligence through WWII. In 1946, he returned to Japan with the American Army of Occupation. He served as an interpreter in the American hospital for Atomic Bomb victims in Nagasaki.

Glen and Edith returned to missionary work in 1955. They served at the Tokyo School of the Japanese Language, 1955-58, then at the International Christian University, 1958-61. In 1961, Bruner had to retire from missionary service due to health reasons. He then became an associate in the business administration for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (a facility of the National Academy of Sciences) in first the Hiroshima, then the Nagasaki Laboratory, 1961-66.

In 1966, Glen and Edith retired and returned to the United States. They settled at the Frasier Manor Retirement Home in Boulder, Colorado run by the United Methodist Church. Throughout their retirement, they were active in several associations involving aspects of their lives including the Lions Club, a retired diplomatic corps group, a retired Army group, college alumni, and the United Methodist Church. They remained very interested in and supportive of missionary work, particularly in Japan. Glen Bruner died March 26, 1987 in Boulder. It is not known when Edith died.