RENO, Nev. -- Anyone expecting a sweet remembrance of the life and times of Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddikk was in for a surprise if they opened the obituary pages this week in the local newspaper.
"On behalf of her children who she 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 scathing obituary begins.
Now circling the globe on the Internet, the obit was written by Johnson-Reddikk's adult children, whose horror stories prompted Nevada to become one of the first states to allow children to sever parental ties back in the 1980s.
Johnson-Reddikk died at a Reno nursing home Aug. 30 at the age of 79, according to her daughter, Katherine Reddikk, 57, now a psychology consultant for a school district outside Austin, Texas.
Katherine Reddikk said she decided to share the story of their painful physical and mental abuse after consulting with her brother, Patrick Reddikk, 58, who lives in Minden south of Carson City. They said they grew up with four siblings in a Carson City orphanage after they were removed from their mother's home and had been estranged from her for more than 30 years.
"Everyone she met, adult or child was tortured by her cruelty and exposure to violence, criminal activity, vulgarity, and hatred of the gentle or kind human spirit," the obit said. "Our greatest wish now is to stimulate a national movement that mandates a purposeful and dedicated war against child abuse in the United States of America."
