Brenda Stark

Brenda Stark passed away peacefully on March 23rd after 69 years as the heart of her family and community. Brenda spent her life in delighted exploration of the world and people around her as she shared her happy outlook, grace and sense of humor with everyone she met. Born in Detroit Michigan to Ralph and Shirley Dykstra, Brenda was the eldest of three children and had a normal childhood of work and play, family meals around the table and time spent with friends and her brother Robert Dykstra and sister Lisa Murchison. Her father worked for the phone company while her mother ran the household. Brenda went to college in Iowa to study music and sing, but soon started her family. Her life with them took her to all the compass points in the country, but she was happiest in any quiet spot with wind, wood and water. While her businesses were in town, her home was usually somewhere green with a yard and small comforts for the animals she loved to see as she looked out her window. While it was not her career, music was a major part of her life and combined with her husband Robert they raised two children, Margaret and Luke to share her values. Music nights at the Stark house were a thing to experience and her children will forever hold in their hearts the memories of her voice raised in song, laughing and dancing from their earliest memories. Brenda had a shrewd head for business as well as people, usually engaged in a successful home or formal business venture while maintaining her household and family. She could balance the books, landscape a yard, market her business or bandage a knee with equal aptitude all while being there for us. She worked in fabric and stone and people and love...and she will be missed by many for a very long time. In lieu of flowers, gifts in memory of Brenda Stark may be made to the Mass General Cancer Center in support of head & neck cancer research. Gifts can be made online at http://giving.massgeneral.org/donate/ or mailed to the MGH Development Office, attention: Carrie Powers, 125 Nashua St, Suite 540, Boston, MA 02114. Checks payable to Massachusetts General Hospital. Please include "in memory of Brenda Stark" on the memo line.