Laura May Bruco, 1970-2025 (nee Laura French Bland, Laura Bland Ullman)
It is with great sorrow that we announce the unexpected passing of Laura May Bruco on Sunday, April 6th, 2025, at her home in Emery, SD. Laura died from a sudden cardiac event after a morning spent doing what she loved – spending time in her garden socializing with her dear friend and neighbor, Luann Enander, in the company of her beloved cats, Phryne and Hazel, and her adoring canine sidekick, Rocky. She had just turned 55 two weeks prior.
Laura was born in 1970 and grew up with her adoptive family in Harrisonburg, VA. Even at a young age, Laura was a fun loving spirit who knew how to seize the day. Her lifelong friend, Tracy Smith, recalls the two of them doing dance routines to Elton John’s Crocodile Rock in the front bay window of her childhood house, which still has their initials carved in the concrete retaining wall. On hot summer days they could be found bouncing around in a giant innertube at Westover pool, belting out the lyrics to John Lennon’s Watching the Wheels. Throughout her life, Laura would stop to sing, dance and spend time with friends at every opportunity.
In 1993 Laura earned a B.A. in Sociology from George Washington University in DC. After graduating she accepted a position with Siebel Systems in Northern Virginia, a company that pioneered software solutions designed to help improve customer service and relations. Her work there allowed her to travel extensively and live in Australia, Europe, Canada, and India, as well as both coasts of the US. Laura always immersed herself in the local culture and made friends wherever she went.
Laura married Allen Ullmann in 1996. Of the many things they had in common was that they had both been adopted, so together they searched for their respective birth parents. Laura followed clues from a newspaper clipping about adoptions in the Roanoke area, which led her to the agency that had placed her with the Bland family in VA and eventually to her birth mother, Trudy Stephenson Willis. Trudy and Laura developed a lifelong bond when they reconnected in San Francisco, CA, in 2000.
After her divorce, Laura continued working for Siebel Systems until she took a break in 2006 to learn the healing art of Reiki, which she practiced while remodeling a South Carolina beach house in exchange for rent. Several changes of scenery later, Laura landed in Seattle, where she became a licensed massage therapist for a brief time before her life took a medical detour to battle breast cancer. During her healing journey she joined a knitting group at Seattle Yarn and discovered a passion for knitting in a new community of friends who embraced her as she was, helping to clear her “chemo brain fog” and rediscover the joy of inhabiting her body.
Laura loved living in West Seattle. She was a constant presence in Dragonfly Park, just yards from her front door, where she could be found every day walking the forested trail skirting Longfellow Creek with Phryne in tow and her anxiously adoring COVID rescue dog, Herbie, at her side. With her outgoing spirit and ability to build community wherever she went, she became the unofficial ambassador of her North Delridge neighborhood. Laura spearheaded efforts – such as Pride in the Park, Seattle Night Out, Friday Evenings in the Park, and Friends of Dragonfly Park – that transformed her neighborhood into a caring community.
In 2017, once she had recovered enough to return to work, Laura accepted a position as a Community Mental Health Advocate and a Certified Peer Support Specialist at Sound Behavioral Health. Laura drew on her own lived experience to help people navigate the complex system of mental health services and guide others in finding hope, health, and help.
In 2019, she enrolled in the Smith College School of Social Work. When COVID hit a year later, she left her job at Sound to focus on completing her master’s degree. After graduating in 2021, she began her liberation-oriented private therapy practice, combining her commitment to relationship building from her years in the customer service industry with her passion for helping others create healthy relationships, build community and lead fulfilling lives. Laura was an out-spoken advocate who believed in her clients’ capacity to reconceptualize self and find liberation through connection. In 2023, Laura was given the Social Justice Leadership award by the Washington State Society for Clinical Social Workers for her outstanding work in the community.
Laura uprooted her life in Seattle in 2023 and, with characteristic boldness and bravery, transplanted herself and her small brood to Emery, a small town with a population under 500. Even though she often felt alone in Emery, she had never been happier. She poured her heart into restoring her 1920s craftsman-style house and transforming the nondescript grass lawn, prone to flooding, into a magical rain garden with native plants and a yard that she proudly told everyone she recently had certified as a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Laura was filled with joyful excitement and anticipation to see the fruits of her labor blossom this spring. She was proud of her burgeoning edible garden, which she envisioned as a place that would support and build community by growing fresh produce for the local food bank, where she volunteered. She planned on sharing her bounty with her neighbors by setting up a pay-what-you-can produce and flower stand in front of her house. As she put it, “Gardening is my activism.”
In Emery, Laura continued offering her counseling services online, as well as supervising graduate students from Wayne State College and the University of South Dakota as they completed fieldwork requirements for their masters degrees. She gave so much of herself to the mental health field in such a short time that, as one of her practicum students observed, “She was an amazing person… her death is a significant loss for so many.”
Her final post to her blog (which can be viewed at The Center of You) announced her newest workshop to be offered this spring, titled Rooted in Being: Re-conceptualizing Self, Reciprocity and Liberation. Inspired by one of her favorite books, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, she posed the question “What if your life wasn’t a problem to solve, but a pattern to reweave?” and invited participants to “understand the forces shaping your life, and deepen your connections with yourself, others, and nature…. [to] rethink identity as a dynamic interaction with our surroundings, discovering kinship with nature and each other in the process.” Laura will live on in our hearts and minds, even as her body and spirit have been liberated and set free to join the forces that will always shape our lives.
Laura is survived by her birth mother, Trudy Stephenson Willis of Mountain View, CA; her older brother, William Snyder of Storrs, CT; and her birth father, Laurence Mcarthur. She is also survived by her adoptive father, Sidney Rodrick Bland and his wife Linda Heatwole Bland, of Harrisonburg, VA; her adoptive brother, Wilson Chatman Bland of Colonial Beach, VA; and her nephew, Joseph Sidney Bland of Horse Cave, KY. Last, but not least, she is survived by her friend and former husband, Allen J. Ullmann of Leesburg, VA, and a scattered but cherished community of dear friends and chosen family around the world.
If moved to do so, please volunteer or make a donation in her honor at your local food bank, animal shelter, or community garden, all causes she supported passionately.
You can share memories and thoughts with Laura’s friends and family at the Kinzley Funeral Home online tribute page at kinzleyfh.com/obituary/laura-bruco.
A celebration of Laura’s life will be held this summer in Dragonfly Park in West Seattle. Please check West Seattle Blog in the coming weeks for an announcement.
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