Elizabeth Brooke Bañuelos

Elizabeth Brooke Spencer Newlin Bañuelos died Thursday, June 29, 2023, at home in San Pedro, Calif. She was 53.

“Her smile, joy, positivity, honesty, and unconditional love,” said her cousin, Christy, “filled the room.”

Brooke was born with blue eyes and peach-fuzz hair on Feb. 21, 1970, in Long Island, N.Y. Early to talk and to learn to read, she was often the first person awake in households throughout her life – and her mom remembers hearing her announce it from her crib with a cry of “cock-a-doodle-do!”

She grew up in Prairie Village, Kan., attended Prairie Elementary School, Corinth Elementary School, and Meadowbrook Junior High School, and graduated in 1988 from Shawnee Mission East High School.

Red-headed and long-legged, Brooke was a picky eater as a child and memorably once handed her parents a list of acceptable dishes, such as Swedish pancakes. She sang along to the radio and records (with her dad’s chunky headphones on) slightly off-key.

Brooke was also a natural and engaging teacher from an early age. After Kindergarten classes, she’d review lessons at home with her sister, turning it into a game. In high school and college, she taught art classes in the Shawnee Mission School District’s summer program and at the Lawrence Arts Center.

While working on her bachelor of fine arts in painting at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., Brooke made lifelong friends in the Delta Gamma sorority and the art department, where she spent days and nights in studio classes and sometimes overnights finishing assignments.

After a brief stint in Fort Collins, Colo., Brooke met Hector Bañuelos in Kansas City at a mutual friend’s wedding. “It was love at first sight,” described Hector, followed by a whirlwind courtship.

Hector invited Brooke to an annual camping trip with friends in Yosemite National Park. It was supposed to be a two-week visit to California, but, as he said, “fate had other plans.” Her flight back to Kansas City was canceled twice; she missed the third flight.

On April 30, 1996, with one friend as a witness, Brooke and Hector exchanged wedding vows at a local courthouse, followed by a celebration at a nearby Baskin-Robbins.

The newlyweds briefly returned to Brooke’s hometown, where Hector met her parents, Lee and John Newlin; then, the couple packed up and drove cross-country to California. In 1997, their spiritual wedding ceremony occurred at Lawrence Martyr Catholic Church in Redondo Beach; this time, friends and family attended.

She delighted in Hector’s large and welcoming family and had a close bond with her mother-in-law, Rosa, who shared her enjoyment of cooking, sweets, and, later, SilverSneakers® fitness classes.

Brooke loved being a mother, starting in 1998, and adored her four children: Sarah, Jeremy, Max, and Diego, who inspired her, made her laugh, and provided endless moments of joy. She met some of her dearest and most supportive friends through Mommy and Me classes, South Shores Magnet School for the Visual & Performing Arts, and the Art to Grow On program.

Encouraging and direct, she was always brimming with ideas for friends, family, and even people she’d just met: “I have a suggestion …”

At 40, Brooke was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Many surgeries, including her most recent in 2018, and rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, resulted in long-term effects: headaches, double vision, short-term memory loss, and excessive fatigue. The tumor was never completely removed and continued to grow in recent years.

It was a state of being, at times unbearable for her. But most days, Brooke remained serene, if not optimistic – particularly if there was “something sweet” on hand, such as chocolate.

An avid notetaker, Brooke started scribbling observations as a child in her “Nancy Drew” notebook, and in the last decade or so of her life, she’d record highlights of conversations on scratch pads – and on scraps of paper, napkins, and backs of receipts – so she could share these tidbits again.

Brooke often made back-to-back phone calls to friends and family. In recent years, she would call again shortly after the end of a conversation and say, “I remembered why I called you” or “I don’t know why we got off the phone.”

In an email Brooke sent last year, when she was taking chemo and not feeling well, she wrote that when it was her time to go, “I’m going to be a bird (or butterfly), so keep an eye out for me.”

Let us know if you see her.

Brooke is survived by her husband, Hector Bañuelos; sons Jeremy, Max, and Diego Bañuelos; mother-in-law Rosa Bañuelos; brother-in-law, Carlos (Carolyn) Bañuelos; and brother-in-law Ronnie Bañuelos, of San Pedro, Ca.; sister-in-law Gabriela (Hector) Escobar; and brother-in-law Sergio (Sylvie Lui Van Cheng) Bañuelos of Rancho Palos Verdes, Ca.

She also leaves behind her mother, Elizabeth Lee Henry, of Olathe, Kan.; sister, Laura (Frank Morris) Spencer-Morris; and stepmother Julie Newlin, of Kansas City, Mo.; father, Robert (Linda) Spencer III; and sister, Michele Spencer, of Metairie, La.; as well as aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, great-nieces and great-nephews, and countless friends and neighbors.

Brooke will be laid to rest at Green Hills Memorial Park with her beloved daughter Sarah Monte Bañuelos, who died in 2015 at 17.

Services are scheduled for Friday, July 14, at Green Hills Memorial Park, 27501 South Western Avenue, Rancho Palos Verdes, Ca. Visitation begins at 9:30 a.m. in the historic church, followed by a 10 a.m. mass and a graveside memorial service.

Flowers are welcome at the graveside service. Please also consider donating to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro, where Brooke spent hours with her kids when they were little, or Kansas City Ballet, the National Museum of Toys and Miniatures, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City-based organizations that sparked her creativity.