Dedicated to My Mother

In Memory of My Mother
Part 1: Childhood Years

This blog is dedicated to my mother Brenda Jeanette Presnell. It is a form of therapy for me and a way for me to keep her memory alive. It will also be the hardest thing I will do.

On December 12, 1951; my mother was born into a family with a father, mother, and four older brothers, Tom, Max, Ron and John. I'm not totally positive of some of her childhood other than she grew up around her brother John more than her other brothers.


I made a questionaire a few years back about different aspects of life. To understand her childhood better, I will list some of the questions with there anwsers. Here goes:

Q.) How easily or often did you get into mischeif? Why? What was your punishment?
Were your parents strict?

A.) " Not often. Got terrible whippons from mother, dad left when I was 5. Mom tried to
raise us."

Q.) What stands out in your mind about your relatives? Did you have a favorite relative?
Why? Did you do anything special with that relative?

A.) " My grandma and Aunt Ruth, my only salvation. We went to the meat market, blackberry picking, mushroom hunting, killed chickens, and learned to play solitaire."

Q.) How far was school from your house? How did you get there? Does anyone stand out in your mind as having a large influence on you? How were your grades?

A.) "School was about 1/2 mile whereever we lived. Mrs Failing's birthday & mine same day. Had her for 1st and 2nd grade. Not good grades moved to much. Different school every year after 1st and 2nd grade."

Q.) What experience did you have with death as a child? What funeral or burial customs were followed?

A.) "Had grandpa die & uncles. My grandma had caskets with bodies in them to view at home till burial."

There are several other questions I had asked her but those are a few. To end out her childhood before her teenage years, I remember her telling me that they moved around a lot and I guess things could get pretty violent. During one of her parents fights an ashtray was tossed across the room and it hit her eyebrow and busted it open. I rarely ever heard her talk of anything postive from her childhood.

I'm going to end part 1 here and tell you more about her in Part 2: teenage years. In doing this I hope to understand more about her for myself.

To Be Continued......

Thanks for reading!!!!