Synthia Dakota (SD) Kilgo Stricklin Brock also known as “Granny Brock” went to her heavenly home on April 14 2023 at the age 101. A wife to veterans Charles Lawrence Stricklin and Arthur Charles (AC) Brock, she was truly an angel on earth.
She was born Jan. 17 1922 at home in Logan Alabama, the seventh child of the 9 surviving children of Charley Mitchell Kilgo and Rhoena Addeline Souter Kilgo, she was named after her two grandmothers.
When God sent her to earth to watch over us, he gave her a servant’s heart and all her life she lived to serve others. As she grew into a beautiful teenager, she was thin and attractive, with dark, raven black hair that caught the attention of lots of young men. Two of them in particular caught her eye and they both began competing for her attention.
The story of the last two parts of her name, the Stricklin and the Brock and how they became part of her name reads like the plot of every Hallmark movie you watched. SD graduated from Cullman High School and being determined to help people went off to nursing school in Tuscaloosa.
As part of their nursing training the student nurses worked shifts at Brice Mental Hospital that was adjacent to the campus at Alabama. SD’s angel showed itself as she became a favorite of many of the women under her care at Brice. Because of her loving, sweet nature some of the patients would not let anyone but mother tend to them and groom them. One morning as SD was going to breakfast she found everyone gathered around the radio as reports of the bombing of Pearl Harbor was being broadcast. She immediately left school to return home to Logan. Many young men were joining the military and SD and Lawrence (Foots) Stricklin decided to get married before he was drafted.
One afternoon while at a basketball game at Logan, Foots showed her a marriage license he had picked up that day and they decided not to wait any longer. At half time they drove to this church’s parsonage and had the preacher marry them. Then they drove back to the ball game. After the game they went to her home and told her parents the news, packed a bag and went to live with Foot’s parents in Brushy Pond and so the Stricklin was added to her name. Arthur Brock having lost the race for his beloved SD was extremely upset.
SD and Foots married on Jan 19, 1942 and just five days later, almost as soon as he heard, on Jan 21 1942 a heart broken Arthur joined the army. You can draw your own conclusions as to why he might have joined. Cleason Emory Stricklin was born 11 months after SD and Foots married. Cleason was born while Foots, who was drafted into the army, was in officers’ training. Cleason was born with a double cleft palate and hair lip. Foots was allowed to come home due to the circumstance of Cleason’s birth. After a very short time he had to report back to duty and he only saw Cleason for one other short time before he shipped out for Germany.
As a young 20-year-old, SD was left with a very sick son to take care of. She also had to get on a bus and ride to Birmingham where she didn’t know anyone except the couple she rented a room from and take Cleason back and forth to the hospital as he had numerous surgeries to repair his palate and lip. For the next three years Cleason and SD waited anxiously for letters from Foots, whose infantry unit was fighting their way closer and closer to Berlin. Tragically, just 5 months before the end of the war Foots was killed in the Harz Mountains. Meanwhile Arthur was involved in the fighting in the Philippines.
Finally, the war ended and Arthur came home. Now a widow at 23 and living with her parents at Logan, SD said one Sunday while leaving this church she saw a group of young men standing in front of the store across the street. As she watched one of them stepped forward and looked directly at her. She recognized her former sweetheart Arthur Brock. They didn’t speak but he nodded his head at her. Later that evening he showed up at her house and they resumed their relationship. They were married on Nov 8, 1946.
The next year in July SD gave birth to triplets. Born several months pre-mature they didn’t survive. At twenty-four years old not only had she lost a husband but tragically also three baby boys. Through it all she kept her deep faith in our Lord and Savior and her belief that he was in charge and that he would bring her through the tough times. This is the way she lived her life. Trusting in God and serving others. She became pregnant again in 1949 and Darrell Radford Brock joined the family. Arthur was called back into the military when the Korean War began in 1952.
Just as their lives were beginning to settle down SD had to pack up her little family and moved to Shreveport La. where Arthur was trained to work on the jet planes used in Korea. From Shreveport they moved to Tampa Fl. where Durwin Lee Brock was born in 1955. As a young military mother raising three boys, SD faced many challenges. Through every one she kept her faith and was the best mother in the world. She was a Cub Scout Den Mother and the host to all the kids in the neighborhoods everywhere she lived. Her house was the house that all the kids came to and the yard everyone played in.
No one was ever turned away from her table and she taught her boys to treat everyone with respect and dignity; that everyone was a child of the same God. Back at Logan SD raised chickens and sold Avon to help support the family. She worked hard at everything she did. Arthur Brock died in May of 1972 and SD immediately took her father and mother in and cared for them for the next 8 years. She nursed them through heart attacks and sickness and held their hands in their last days. Becoming a widow for the second time SD spent the next 51 years devoted to her grandchildren, her flowers, her church family and her garden. She loved her flowers and sought to plant many different kinds. Every year until she reached the age of 96 and wasn’t able to, she tended a large vegetable garden
Her grandchildren never had to worry about day care because they had something much better…they had Granny Care! She taught them to read and write by reading them bible stories, taught them right from wrong the same way she taught her own sons. She was thrifty and conservative because she grew up during the depression. She was an excellent seamstress and sewed, repaired clothes and made dresses and clothes for everyone. Her children and grandchildren’s houses and her house is full of the quilts she made for every new baby and grand baby that was born into the family. She was an excellent cook and cooked meals for her family every Sunday for years and years. That was her way of making sure that the family came together each week. She was the best mother and the best Granny in the world. She was Granny Brock to people whom she was not the least bit kin but who loved her like she was their Granny.
On April 14, 2023 at 11:50 a.m. at the age of 101, God called his angel back to heaven because she was only on loan to us. Synthia Dakota Kilgo Stricklin Brock is survived by her beloved sister Odeen Wren, sons Cleason Stricklin, Darrell Brock and wife Charlotte, and Durwin Brock and his wife Pam. Grandchildren Larry Stricklin and wife Janice, Steve Kicklighter, Jim Kicklighter, and Deborah Kicklighter, Candice Skinner and husband Tony, Cameron Brock and wife Kylee, Josh Brock, Jason Brock and wife Jenna.
