Children Who Wrote Brutal Obit For Their Mom Reveal Why "She Will Not Be Missed"

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Children Who Wrote Brutal Obit For Their Mom Reveal Why "She Will Not Be Missed"

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When you eventually pass away, your obituary will be one of the last things your family and friends will remember you by. While some death notices can incredibly sentimental or just downright hilarious, there is the occasional obituary that'll stay in your mind for at least the foreseeable future.

One of these memorable obits belongs to Kathleen Dehmlow, but not for the reasons you'd expect.

The Brutal Obit

Written by her daughter, Gina, 60, Dehmlow is described as a horrendous parent to her and her brother, Jay.

While it's only a small blurb, Gina was able to include several (alleged) personal attacks.

"In 1962, she became pregnant by her husband's brother Lyle Dehmlow and moved to California," it read. "She abandoned her children, Gina and Jay, who were then raised by her parents in Clements, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schunk."

The death notice also said: "She will not be missed by Gina and Jay, and they understand that this world is a better place without her."

Kathleen Dehmlow
Kathleen DehmlowLegacy

According to the Daily Mail, Gina came up with the idea to write the brutal obit after her cousin told her that Dehmlow was on the verge of death.

Penned by Jay, 58, - who changed his last name to Dehmalo in an effort to cut ties with his family - said writing the death notice was absolutely therapeutic.

"You can't believe the dysfunction of the family," he said. "They'll never know what we went through but it helped us [to write this]. We wanted to finally get the last word."

Although one newspaper in Springfield, Minnesota passed on the obit due to it being "too offensive to public," the Minneapolis Star Tribune made sure to publish it word for word.

Dwight Dehmlow, a distant relative of the family said it was unfair the siblings decided to tarnish their mother's name only after she passed away.  

"The sad thing about this is there is no rebuttal. There is more to it than this. It's not simple," he said. "She made a mistake 60 years ago, but who hasn't? Has she regretted it over the years? Yes."

"[Gina and Jay] decided to go out with hate. This is going to hurt a lot of people," he added.

A picture of Jay Dehmalo
Jay DehmaloFacebook

The Siblings' Upbringing

Jay said that after their mother decided to abandon her family, he and his sister were raised by his maternal grandparents, Joseph and Gertrude Schunk, as their father wasn't fit to care for them either.

"They took them in because Kathleen was evidently an unfit mother or something. Kathleen liked to drink as well, she liked to party as well," the insider said.

While Jay describes he and his sister as "bad kids" at times, they still loved and cherished their grandparents, which made being left off Joseph's obit in the 80s.

"It's true. I'd borrowed $200 from my grandfather and I didn't pay him back. He loved us but I was a typical teenager growing up."

But despite their short estrangement Gina and Jay still received money from their grandfather's will, much to the chagrin of their cousins.

"They [the rest of their children and grandchildren] thought that the inheritance was for them. I have never met such small minded people in my life," Dehmalo said. "If I got a new pair of pants or a new bike, I was being spoiled. It was unbelievable."

Kathleen's New Life

Following their mother's infidelity with her husband's younger brother, Lyle, Gina and Jay had to piece together what was going on in their mother's life in California.

"We didn't have so much as a card from her. I remember she came home twice and on one occasion she was showing pictures of her and her kids playing cards, drinking beers...," Jay explained.

"Gina and I were standing in the room, just standing there and she didn't even acknowledge us. It's like we didn't exist," he continued. "How can you do that to your own children? That's when we knew we had to get the hell out of Minnesota."

To make matters worse, the siblings didn't know they had two half-brothers until years after their birth.

"You could write it all down in a book or turn it into a movie and people wouldn't believe what we went through," Jay said.

Another Unflattering Obit

When a woman by the name of Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick passed away in 2013, she was ruthlessly described as "evil and violent," who spent a "lifetime torturing [her eight children] in every way possible."

According to her daughter, Kathleen, her mother was particularly cruel with her words.

"'I hate you ungrateful sons of bitches and despise the day you were born,' she shouted at us. When she calmed down, we quietly reappeared, crawling out of closets, from underneath beds or anywhere else we made ourselves small and invisible," Kathleen wrote.

Marianne Theresa John­son-Reddick
Marianne Theresa John­son-ReddickxoJane

When her mother eventually passed away, she and her siblings wasted no time getting her death notice published in the Reno Gazette-Journal.

"On behalf of her children whom she so abrasively exposed to her evil and violent life, we celebrate her passing from this earth and hope she lives in the after-life reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty, and shame that she delivered on her children," the obituary said.

"Her surviving children will now live the rest of their lives with the peace of knowing their nightmare finally has some form of closure," it continued.

While most people believe this obit went too far, Johnson-Reddick's son Patrick said everything written was completely honest.

"[The] main purpose for putting it in there," he said, "was to bring awareness to child abuse."

Want to read about more outrageous family feuds? Take a look at these zany articles:

Sources: Daily Mail, The Wichita Eagle, Global News, xoJane

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Maya has been working at Shared for a year. She just begrudgingly spent $200 on a gym membership. Contact her at maya@shared.com