ALVA — The woman believed to have been the oldest Oklahoman will be buried today after dying Wednesday at the age of 110.

Kristine K. Brown was a retired mathematics instructor at Northwestern State College, now Northwestern Oklahoma State University.

“She was a very nice person,” said Roland Meyer, of Alva, a former student and colleague at Northwestern. “I liked her. Everybody liked Mrs. Brown.”

Meyer and his wife became Brown’s caretakers in her later years, since she had so few relatives. She is survived by a nephew, Brooks Klostermyer, of Ashboro, N.C.

“We were great buddies,” Meyer said. “We’ve just been good friends.”

A graveside service will be 2 p.m. today in Grace Hill Ceme-tery in Perry. Arrangements are by Wharton Funeral Chapel, of Alva.

She was born Sept. 8, 1897, in Rockville, Mo., to James A. and M. Josephine Van Slyke Kostermyer and died Wednesday at Alva Share Medical Center.

The family moved to Perry in 1901, and she started her teaching career in 1935 in a country school near Perry.

She married Kenneth E. Brown Dec. 24, 1925, in Perry. She attended S.D.A. Southwest-ern Junior College in Keene, Texas, receiving her high school diploma. She went to Union Col-lege in Lincoln, Neb., and earned a bachelor’s degree from Colo-rado State College. She received a master’s degree from Teacher’s College at Columbia University. She also did graduate work at the University of Oklahoma, Okla-homa State University, Univer-sity of Colorado, University of California-Los Angeles and the University of Washington.

Her husband was in the Navy, Meyer said, and she followed him around to where he was stationed. After teaching near Perry, she went to New Jersey State Teachers College. During World War II, while he was serving overseas, she taught at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa.

In 1947, she came to Northwestern and stayed there until she retired in 1965.

“She came up the hard way,” Meyer said.

Meyer had Brown as an instructor while he attended Northwestern. He left before graduating and served in the military during the Korean War.

He did, though, keep in touch with Brown.

“I wrote to her while I was in the Korean War,” he said. “I told her what I was going through. She is the only teacher I wrote.”

When he came back from the war, he resumed his education at Northwestern, and after getting his master’s degree decided to teach at the college level.

Brown recommended him to Northwestern officials, and he taught alongside her from 1959 to 1965.

“I felt a little indebted to her for that,” Meyer said.

Brown was a member of Alva Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Delta Kappa Gamma, National Council of Teachers of Mathe-matics, Oklahoma Education Association, National Education Association, AAUW, Kappa Delta Pi and Daughters of the American Revolution.