Floy C. Brent
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Floy C. Brent, age 93, of Columbia, Missouri passed away Tuesday, July 28, 2020 in her home with family in attendance. She was born in Pangburn, Arkansas in 1927 to Cecil and Opal Ritter. During WWII, at the age of 17, she fibbed about her age to work in a defense plant as a riveter building fighter planes for the war effort. After the war she returned to Batesville, Arkansas, and earned an Associate Degree from Batesville College. She spent most of her adult life in Belton, Missouri, and worked as a quality control inspector and later unit manager at Bendix Corporation in Kansas City, Missouri.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Edward Brent, Sr. She is survived by her two daughters, Sheila Voorhees of Belton, Missouri, Karen Loser of Sacramento, CA, and her son, Edward Brent, Jr. of Columbia, Missouri, along with six grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren.
Floy was a loving mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. After retiring in 1989 and losing her husband to cancer, she spent over 30 years as the family matriarch, helping her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren by welcoming them into her home and providing sage advice and help whenever it was needed. She was well-known for her quick wit and sense of humor, including a willingness to laugh at herself. She loved traveling and visited every state in the U.S. including Alaska and Hawaii, along with Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. She loved word games, would work her way through book after book of crossword puzzles and Sudoku games, as well as spending happy hours watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with her family. She became an ardent user of the Internet to stay in touch through Facebook and to pursue her passion in genealogy.
She was an amazing woman, quick to laugh, eager to learn, and full of love. I learned so much from her and will miss her dearly.
I am so very blessed to have known her! Mae and I went to her home in Arkansas some years back. We were driving around her old homestead, she decided to knock on the door of the house that her family had built (fact check needed), and was invited to take a look around! It is a great memory!!
What a loss — the last of our “Greatest Generation”. It meant so much to us that she was there when we buried my sister Gail, and placed Mom”s and Dad’s ashes in the plot at Concord. Both loving and entertaining, she shared memories of family and of neighboring grave occupants. Richard and I are especially grateful that she discovered and shared with us our common Irish lineage from 1767. The epitome of a Renaissance Woman — she will be sadly missed.
Words cannot express how much I loved my grandmother, and how important she was to our family. She was a rock of stability and love. She left a treasure trove of information on our heritage to be cherished.
My brother Randy shared a biological excerpt she wrote with me and our younger brother Pete after her passing. It’s entitled, “The Incredible Doctor Flying Cloud”. Dr. Flying Cloud lived with grandma’s parents on Brock Mountain in Arkansas in 1934. Grandma said during the Depression, there was often a transient who would turn up at Papa and Mama’s door, and they were never turned away. According to Grandma, Mama was a cute little redhead with a wonderful sense of humor, and Papa was a well-trained schoolteacher with a twinkle in his eye. Grandma didn’t know the difference between the Depression-era transients, and Dr. Flying Cloud, who was a historical figure.
Dr. Flying Cloud was a Native American trained in chiropractic medicine, and a protege of President Roosevelt. He offered to practice his chiropractic skills on our great-grandmother for a headache, and after just a few moments of adjustment on the table, she jumped up and said that was enough.
One day, he opened up his black bag, and pulled out a feathered Indian war bonnet. He allowed Grandma to wear the war bonnet, and then told her, when he was just 14 years old, he had worn the headdress, and he had worn it during Custer’s Last Stand. Dr. Flying Cloud was Sitting Bull’s nephew, and he told Grandma about Custer’s Last Stand, “the Indians won that one”, though he was too young, at 14, to fight.
“He believed in ghosts, spirits to him. He sat around the fireplace with us three kids and our friends while we roasted peanuts and popped corn and he told us the most fascinating ghost stories I have ever heard….”
“I was skeptical about his being Sitting Bull’s nephew. He had told us so many ghost stories- and I didn’t really believe any of them. Like Papa said, Dr. Flying Cloud admitted he had never actually seen a ghost, he just knew they were for real…. I regret that attitude of mine to this day. Years after Dr. Flying Cloud had gone on his way, I discovered his story was true. He, wearing his war bonnet, was pictured with some Washington dignitaries in my high school government textbook. The accompanying caption stated that Flying Cloud was Sitting Bull’s nephew and this was indeed Sitting Bull’s war bonnet. Someone smarter than I believed him! So who knows? I may yet meet some of Dr. Flying Cloud’s spirits I didn’t believe were real, either.”
Floy was my cousin. I remember her energy for life was seemingly endless. She was buzzing around to visit family friends all over the place, and she was doing so at an age when a lot of folks slow down and even give up driving altogether. I was once again impressed with her years later when we reconnected via the internet. She was adept with social media into her 90s! I hope I take after Floy as I age. After all, God wants us to be fruitful and prosperous throughout our whole lives. Floy certainly was. Lord bless!