Virginia "Ginny" Lane Bradley

Virginia “Ginny” Lane Bradley, 88, of Missoula, Montana, passed away on Saturday, April 27th, 2024, of natural causes. Virginia “Ginny” Lucille Burson, was the youngest of eight children born to Johnie and Lonie Mae Daniel Burson in Fort Myers, Florida on January 10, 1936, in a little, white cracker house on Desota Avenue. Her father, a shoe and leather goods maker with a business in town, died of tuberculosis during the middle of WWII when Ginny was only 9 years old.  As a child losing a parent, this was a defining moment in her life and ultimately would also be a similar experience she would share with her future husband.

Both of her parents were born and raised in Georgia and came to Florida in the early 1920's. The Daniel and Burson families, both being some of our country’s earliest settlers, came to America in 1669 and 1684 respectively. Her 5th great grandfather was Governor Robert Daniell, who was governor of both North and then later South Carolina, before his family moved two generations later to help start the Mars Hill community in Georgia. The Daniell home in Georgia, just outside of Athens, was her ggg-grandfather's home that is on the Registrar of Historic Places. The Daniell family has held a reunion every September near that home for over five generations. That sense of family was always her passion.

Only 14, when the last of her siblings married and left home, she finished high school and went to work as a secretary to the mayor of Fort Myers. Wanting to see the world, Ginny became a stewardess for National Airlines and moved to Jacksonville and later Miami, while taking care of her mother.  One day while shopping in Coral Gables along with a pilot friend of hers, she was introduced to her future husband, Robert “Bob” Lane.  Bob and she were married on April 06, 1962, at the Hialeah First Methodist Church.

Shortly after leaving National Airlines, she became pregnant with Virginia and then two years later with Jocelyn. She was a stay-at-home mom until the girls were in school full-time.  At that time, she went to nursing school and interned at Jackson Memorial and worked at Baptist Hospital. In 1976, the family moved to Sarasota County, where they built a home in Englewood. While there, she worked first for Venice Hospital and then managed a birthing clinic and three OB-GYN offices in the Venice to Port Charlotte areas. Ginny went back to school to finish her BA degree and graduated from Florida Southern College in 1992. She was active in the community as a member of the Englewood United Methodist Church, Eastern Star and the Elks, where she held many offices including President and District positions.

They resided in Englewood until 1996 when they moved to Stuart, Florida.   Their main past time became helping and spending much of their free time with their grandchildren. Ginny was a member of the DAR-Halpatiokee Chapter, the Garden Club of Stuart and the First United Methodist Church. Unfortunately, Bob died of cancer in 2004. Ginny continued living in their home in Stuart until 2012, when she married Curtis Bradley, a widower and friend of the family from Venice. Curtis died of cancer in 2018 and in 2019, Ginny moved to Montana to live near Jocelyn and Nikki.

Left to cherish her memory are her two children, Virginia (David) Hill and Jocelyn Lane;  a stepson and stepdaughter, Kenneth Graham (Brenda) Lane and Brenda Lane Ramsay; three grandchildren, David (Lisa) Hill, Jr., Nikki Lane (Sam) Geiszler and Robert (Andi) Hill; a step-granddaughter, Brita Ramsay; three great-grandchildren, Charlotte Geiszler, Oliver Geiszler and Liam Hill; and many wonderful nieces and nephews along with extended family and friends.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests a donation towards a memorial bench in her honor to be placed in Kiwanis Park in Stuart alongside an existing bench which is honoring her late husband, Bob.  Donations may be sent to: Kiwanis Club of Stuart Foundation, P.O. Box 0532, Stuart, FL  34995-0532 in Memory of Virginia Lane Bradley.  (Kiwanis is a 501 (c) 3 charity organization). 

A Memorial Service will be held in Stuart, Florida and interment will be held at the Bushnell National Cemetery in Bushnell, Florida.