Dr. Charles Keepers Bruner, for years one of the best known and most successful physicians and surgeons at Greenfield, is a native of Pennsylvania, born in the city of Connellsville, Fayette county, that state, August 23, 1857, son of Dr. Samuel G. and Sarah (Keepers) Bruner, both natives of that same county and state.

Dr. Samuel G. Bruner, a dentist and an honored veteran of the Civil War, was descended from the first of that family to settle in this country in early Colonial days. The family was established in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, and on the original homestead there the grandfather of the subject of this sketch was born and there he spent his life, living to the great age of ninety-six years. Dr. Samuel G. Bruner was reared as a farmer, but later became a dentist and in 1863, moved to New Athens, Ohio, where he shortly afterward enlisted for service during the Civil war in the One Hundred and First Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which he served for one hundred days and during which service he contracted typhoid fever, the effects of which kept him confined to his home for a year after the close of his service. In 1868 he moved with his family to Toledo, Iowa, where he spent the rest of his life, engaged in the practice of his profession, his death occurring in 1887, he then being sixty-eight years of age. He had been twice married and by his first wife had six children, of whom three grew to maturity, Mrs. Henry Eicher, of Pennsylvania; Mrs. Lizzie Fisher, of Kokomo, Indiana, and Mrs. Kate Huston, of Somerset, Pennsylvania. He married, secondly, Mrs. Sarah (Keepers) Bogardus, who, by her first marriage, was the mother of one son, Benjamin S. Bogardus, now deceased. By her second marriage she was the mother of three children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the eldest, the others being Harry M. Bruner, of Greenfield, Indiana, and a son who died in infancy. Mrs. Sarah Bruner was the granddaughter of an English physician, who came to this country shortly after the Revolutionary War and settled in Fayette County, Pennsylvaiia, where the Keepers family is still largely represented. Her father was a carpenter, who was accidentally killed, leaving a widow and two children, Mrs. Bruner having had a sister, Eliza J., who became the wife of William Miller, of Fayette county, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Charles K. Bruner received his early education at New Athens, Ohio, he having been but six years of age when his parents moved to that place from Pennsylvania. He was ten years old when they moved to Toledo, Iowa, and at the age of fourteen he entered a printing office there but two years later gave up "the art preservative of all arts" and then worked on farms until nineteen years of age, when he began teaching school and for ten years was thus engaged. In the meantime he began reading medicine in the office of Dr. C. H. Coggswell at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and during the winter of 1882-3 took a course in Rush Medical College at Chicago. Lack of funds prevented him from finishing the course at that time and he resumed teaching, after awhile returning to the medical college, from which he was graduated in 1886. Thus admirable equipped for the practice of his profession, Doctor Bruner came to this county and set up an office for practice in Blue River Township, where he remained until 1888, in which year he moved to Greenfield, where he ever since has been engaged in the practice of his profession and where he has been very successful. Doctor Bruner is a member and past president of the Hancock County Medical Society, a member of the Indiana State Medical Association, of the Mississippi Valley Medical Association and of the American Medical Association. He is a Republican and during the Harrison and McKinley administrations was a member of the board of pension examiners. He has ever taken an active and influential part in local political affairs and for some years served his party as a member of the county Republican central committee. He is a member of the Friends church, as is also his wife, the latter having a birthright in the Society of Friends, and both take an active interest in the general good works of the community.

It was in 1885 that Doctor Bruner was united in marriage to Dr. Mary L. Binford, who was born in this county, daughter of Robert Binford and wife, and who had just graduated in that year from the Woman's Hospital Medical College of Chicago, after completing the course at Earlham College and in a training school for nurses at Chicago. Dr. Mary L. Bruner has not only been a valuable aid to her husband in the practice at Greenfield, but conducts an extensive practice apart from that of her husband, devoting her special attention to gynecology and diseases of children. They are the parents of four children, Dr. Charles Herbert, associated with his father and mother in the practice of medicine; John Philip, deceased, had taken the Master of Arts degree and was a sophomore in the medical department of the University of Indiana at the time of his death; Laura M., deceased, ad Ralph P.

Transcribed from History of Hancock County, Indiana, Its People, Industries and Institutions by George J. Richman, B. L., Federal Publishing Co., Indianapolis, Indiana, 1916. Pages 848-850.

Submitted by Sylvia (Rose) Duda, Laingsburg, MI September 12, 2001.

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